The Itálica Festival opens with a reality that is impossible to ignore

2023-06-21 14:34:58

OLA!: I new then/ Entredos/ Impasse It has been the end of the course for the students who have been training in the first edition of the dance program Take off Dance. Program in which its participants have received specialized training from professionals from various disciplines of contemporary dance and neoclassical dance, as well as getting closer to the repertoire of some of the main European companies. All this with the aim that they become versatile dancers to face any audition.

This project based at the headquarters of Funddatec Foundation for Technological, Sustainable and Circular Development in San Juan de Aznalfarache (Seville province), is being directed by Johan Inger and Carolina Armenta. Professionals with extensive experience and knowledge of what is happening in large European companies. The foregoing is something that can give us a clue as to why the language and composition of each of these three pieces is so different to what is moving in Andalusia.

However, all of them contain a certain resonance to creations by Víctor Ullate or Jiří Kylián. Symptom of some of the influences that Johan Inger (choreographer and director of OLA!: I new then/ Entredos/ Impasse) Throughout their professional career, and not least, these pieces are so well designed that each of these dancers will have been able to test themselves in every way. This is: I am no longer just thinking about the degree of technical excellence that must be achieved in order to succeed as an interpreter; but also, the interpretation of each of the scenes of these three pieces, involves going through numerous bodily states and qualities of movement. To the point that Johan Inger, through his dancers, has exposed us how one would dance from positions taken to the extreme.. Configuring a series of characters that appear and disappear in line with the corporality that their dancers adopted.

Photo: Rafa Núñez Ollero

Thus, we, the viewers, have seen images that oscillated between the stylized and elegant to the grotesque, since these three pieces did not try to tell us a story as such, rather I would describe them as a concatenation of “pictures” linked in a formal way. It’s been so stressed the extra everyday of the same that, the actions of their interpreters were eloquent enough so that those of us who integrated the public, extract a reading tailored to our respective baggage. And in the first half of the representation of I new then I gave up analyzing them intellectually, opting for their sensory enjoyment.

At the same time, I couldn’t stop thinking how unfortunate it is that the Take off Dance program is seen as one of the few “exceptions”. A project that, although it is intended for a very specific profile of dancers, the fact is that the level of artistic quality of OLA!: I new then/ Entredos/ Impasse It should be common in students who have finished their training in public educational centers in Spain. Otherwise, we will continue to hinder the development of talent in this country, which is directly related to the lack of public and private support for something that is an inseparable part of our cultural heritage. And it is not that there are no good professionals to invest in such an ambitious company, there is a lack of awareness and faith in the potential of Spain to catch up with the countries of central Europe. In this, precisely, Carolina Armenta and Johan Inger are also showing us that it is feasible today, by having first-class teachers residing in Andalusia itself in Take Off Dance. Such as: Isabel Vázquez, Pilar Pérez Calvete or Raúl Heras, and as far as repertoire is concerned, this year Take off Dance students came to work pieces and language, for example, from the company from Jaén Marcat Dance.

Ultimately, programming OLA!: I new then/ Entredos/ Impasse It has helped me confirm that there is still a lot to be done for dance in Spain. But, fortunately, if one is attentive and strives to learn about the uneven realities of the state of contemporary dance in that country, one verifies that excellence is in sight, not in the imagination of a few.

Photo: Rafa Núñez Ollero

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