Teamwork Arts partners to present Flamenco India in Spain

Teamwork Arts, an entertainment company in the performing arts space, is about to present “Flamenco India”, a collaborative dance theatre and musical showcase produced in partnership with Valladolid City Hall and Teatro Calderón. Featuring 14 Indian artists from across various dance forms and traditions along with 14 Flamenco artists in Spain, Flamenco India will be showcased at Valladolid’s Calderón Theatre from October 1-4^th.

Flamenco India promises an exploration of the ties between flamenco and diverse music and dance forms of India, the collaboration will be directed by the  filmmaker and flamenco-dance drama director Carlos Saura. This Indo-Spanish production showcases the best of flamenco´s passion and vibrancy in hand with the genius and richness of Indian dance and music traditions.

Partnering with 14 flamenco dancers, artists from various Indian regions and traditions have been selected, ranging from Rajasthani desert music, Kathak dance and Hindustani music from North India to Bharata Natyam, the sacred temple dance of South India, not forgetting martial arts such as Kalaripayattu and Chhau combined with contemporary Indian dance. These Indian traditions, like the many strata of the same earth, form layers that trace a rich panorama of movement and sound that at times finds its counterpart, replica or confluence in the powerful art of the bailaores and magical sounds of flamenco music.

Artists taking part in the production — both musicians and dancers — have been living and working together in the months leading up to the premiere so as to perfect to the utmost this synthesis of Indian dance and music with Flamenco staged by Carlos Saura.

Speaking on the collaboration, Carlos Saura says, “With its rhythmic diversity and its flexibility as well as its oriental reminiscences, especially from the Arab world and also from Gypsies who migrated from Rajasthan to Spain (crossing the south of the Mediterranean) – flamenco is today prepared to walk along the road to a promising future. It is that flexibility that allows for the engagement of Indian musicians with certain rhythms in flamenco.”

Sanjoy K Roy, Managing Director Teamwork Arts says, “We are delighted to partner with Teatro Calderon, Casa de la India and the City of Vallodolid in bringing this project to life! The project marks the long term relationship between India and Spain.”

Flamenco India is an audiovisual feast made up of a succession of 18 brief but intense hypnotic scenes that explore, in a way never seen before, the bonds and commonalities between flamenco and Indian dance and music traditions. An exercise in dialogue which will convey to the spectator the most characteristic traits of each culture, showing their essential elements, and bring together two forms of expression that, separated by thousands of kilometres, are united in the way that, through music and dance, they journey to the very depths of their roots.

Credits

Creation and Direction: Carlos Saura

Choreographer (Flamenco): Carmen Cortés

Composition and Music Director (Flamenco): Gerardo Núñez (Spanish Guitarist and Composer)

Choreographer (India): Santosh Nair

Artistic Coordinator and Choreographer (India): Mónica de la Fuente

Composition and Musical Direction (India): Ravi Prasad

Assistant Director: Carlos Saura Medrano