Company

Lope de Vega’s wonderful play was the starting point for Antonio Gades’s last creation. He was undoubtedly the great reformist of Spanish dance in the second half of the 20^th century and one of the contemporary choreographers with greater drama abilities -just like Maurice Béjart was for contemporary dance. Gades wanted to tell this story about solidarity through Spanish folklore and turned it into a work that can blend the oldest, rooted folklore with more advanced theatrical forms in a work that elevates the most traditional dance and songs to art. The Ballet Nacional, which included it in its repertoire in 2001, presents several fragments. It is anecdotic that in one of them, Las lavanderas, Gades realised he had to stop dancing. “At that moment -he recalled-, I came up to Laurencia, who was washing in the river, to help her, and I thought: 'Oh girl, I’m old enough to buy you a washing machine'”.