Belén Maya, Critics' Choice of the Festival de Jerez

The Cátedra de Flamencología de Jerez has awarded the Premio de la Crítica to dancer Belén Maya for her show «Los invitados»

Estrenado el 24 de febrero en el Teatro Villamarta, dentro del marco del XVIII Festival de Jerez. Se trata de un reconocimiento que cuenta con el respaldo mayoritario de los votos emitidos por los críticos acreditados en el certamen de baile flamenco y español.

The show debuted on February 24th at the Teatro Villamarta within the framework of the 18th Festival de Jerez. 

For Belén Maya, “Los Invitados” was a sort of whim based on “finding dances I like to do, and sharing them with some of the artists with whom I feel a certain bond and familiarity on stage”.  Among those “invitados” were singer Carmen Linares and dancer Manuel Liñán in addition to José Valencia, Tomás de Perrate, José Anillo and Gema Caballero, guitarists Javier Patino and Rafael Rodríguez, Laura González and Marina Valiente on palmas and actor Javier Centeno, not to mention the stage direction of David Montero.  And in the midst of them all, the hostess Belén Maya conceived a show “not meant to make people suffer, but to share a good time”.

 

Belén Maya Company

Belén Maya, three decades at the forefront.

“Los Invitados” represents a step forward in the creative process of Belén Maya whose career began just 30 years ago.  From that first taranto in 1984, to this most recent work, Belén Maya has been defining her style more and more, so recognizable in the world of flamenco dance.  She was a pioneer in the use of new aesthetic vocabularies, and continues to be a fundamental reference.

That way of dancing, and that image as depicted on the poster of the film “Flamenco” (Carlos Saura, 1995), traveled round the world and has become an icon of the new expressive horizons of this art.  Shows such as “Flamenco de Cámara”, “Fuera de los Límites”, “Dibujos”, “Bailes Alegres para Personas Tristes”, etc., have only served to enhance the Belén Maya’s commitment to creativity.

Belén Maya showed that another kind of flamenco is possible, moving away from the decorative in order to concentrate on the essence of this art to which she also contributes her constant investigation as director.  Belén Maya was surely the first artist to push flamenco dance into the new millennium, not by adding new rules but by freeing it from the limitations, making it possible for flamenco to communicate with other forms and opening the floodgates of freedom in the syntax and semantics of dance and staging.

Festival de Jerez «Los invitados» – Review & photographs

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