El lenguaje de las líneas
The programme of FAM 23 is offering the show El lenguaje de las líneas (The language of lines) a danced conference by Leonor Leal.
Leonor Leal, a flamenco dancer and contemporary creator, has chosen to inhabit theatre through an innovative and different perspective. El lenguaje de las líneas (The language of lines) is presented as a danced talk. The rising creator, who operates within the terrain of nouveau flamenco, wants to share her concerns about the lack of written texts about flamenco. Of course, this will not be a conference with her sitting in front of a microphone giving a speech. It will be a match between the body and the word.
After collaborating on the project Envoltura by Isabel de Naverán and Idoia Zabaleta in 2017, Leonor Leal began to focus in-depth on Antonia Mercé “la argentina”. This conference is based on that first encounter and is enriched by many others found along the way. El lenguaje de las líneas premiered as part of the Ahora Danza series at the Circus of Seville on 20 March 2019.
“When you dance and look there, what do you see?
I could have returned the question: And what did you see?
But I didn’t and nor did I say what I saw.
Could we dance and think in the form of text? Dance and write at the same time?
Dance and talk? Simultaneously, translate ourselves?
Our practice is packed with tangible materials for our body, words that resonated one day in our learning and altered our vision, lines of light, lines on the ground, in sound, on the skin, sensations, strange time parameters, borrowed nightmares, silences recorded in thirst, indelible gestures, improvised prayers, invocations to other bodies, patches and even complete conversations in our “solitude”. An entire world of un-transferable choreographic notations.
What would happen if, in addition to dancing, we wrote all of this?
There are a few texts written by flamenco dancers, and I am not referring to dance treatises.
There are a few bodies that have published their images, doubts, desires, journeys, or love that are printed in choreographies, but that does not mean that they do not exist.
El lenguaje de las líneas reveals many of these details. In fact, the original title comes from a conference held by the great dancer Antonia Mercé, La Argentina (1890-1936) at the Salon Santé-Beauté in Paris shortly before her death.
Lines that connect us with her and with our own learning. With our memory and with a map in the heavens that continues to guide us. In this conference, we reactivate and go through our own materials and those of others in a format of choreographic re-writings in air and paper.
Fragments from the history of flamenco in order to talk about creative processes, personal philosophies, anecdotes, and scars.”
Leonor Leal, March 2019
Lecture, research and dance: Leonor Leal
Dramaturgic accompaniment: Cecilia Molano
Accompanying research: Victoria Pérez- Royo
Inputs into the process: Pedro G. Romero and Cisco Casado
Special thanks to: Fernando Lima and Alysson Maia
“Leonor Leal herself was able to explain and dance a fragment of her creations, which unfolds not only as a flamenco solo but also a reflection that arose as a result of a query put to her by an audience member who had just watched her in a performance.
“She came over to me and asked, ‘What do you see when you dance?’ I realised that I didn’t have the words to define it”, recalls the young flamenco dancer. “I don’t operate in the world of words, but I realised that I had a lot to say. We never recount what happens to us when we dance and this idea encouraged me to create this show. I researched, and I found almost nothing except for a conference given by Antonia Mercé La Argentina, which I focused on in order to create this work which ended up being a conference about a conference that talked about the body and what we feel when we dance.”
OMAR KHAN – Revista susyQ – 27/05/2022
Leonor Leal, a flamenco dancer and contemporary creator (...) has chosen to inhabit theatre through an innovative and different perspective. Leonor Leal imagines it as an auditorium, a giant lecture hall in which she will offer reflections in the form of Flamenco foot tapping in her show El lenguaje de las líneas, which is presented as a danced talk. The rising creator, who operates within the terrain of nouveau flamenco, wants to share her concerns about the lack of written texts about flamenco. Of course, this will not be a conference with her sitting in front of a microphone giving a speech. It will be a match between the body and the word.
Programme of the Conde Duque Contemporary Culture Center - May 2022.
Show recommended for those over 14 years of age.
Access is only allowed to children over five years of age.
For further information, please check the general purchase terms and hall conditions.
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