The National Ballet of Spain dances Ruvén Afanador’s picture of flamenco

Put a image into movement. Bring photography, flamenco, and dance together in the same show. The view of Ruvén Afanador, a valued Columbian fashion photographer who is also very well known for his portraits of celebrities from the world of film or music, and who has had a close connection with flamenco over the years, is the origin of a new choreography which the Ballet Nacional de España (BNE) presents as a premiere at the Teatro de la Maestranza.

Leaping over the rigid boundaries which, at times, separates different artistic expressions, choreographer Marcos Morau, director of the company La Veronal and recipient of the National Dance Award in 2013, starts with the ability of the photographer “to envision characters by forging real people” and his creativity to produce worlds which “arise from the beauty of light and shadows”, devising a show which is inspired by a photographic approximation to flamenco. Afanador has two books on the subject, Ángel gitano: The Men of Flamenco (2014) and Mil besos (2008); and he signed the poster for the Bienal de Flamenco in 2008. More than anything, and as an artist approaching the world of flamenco from the outside, he is in love with the genre and susceptible to a language which is “as direct and stinging as a sharpened razor” explains Morau.

To blend two different languages: photography and dance, in search of “a new universe”, to build new imagery from the viewpoint of another artist as an exercise of respect and fascination.

The National Ballet of Spain, directed by Sevillian Rubén Olmo, will dance this visual flamenco by Ruvén Afanador. According to Morau, it constitutes “a radical and sombre beauty we cannot stop watching”.