Sometimes you have to start the review from the end, and this is the opportunity, because it is necessary to tell how, at the end of the performance, the audience of the Maestranza theater vigorously applauded the young and magnificent dancers, but it was the exit for … scene of Nacho Duatothe casting director, when the theater stood up to cheer the choreographer who greeted him several times with a broad smile.
Duato, whose works we could shamelessly integrate into this space called “Brand Spain”, vreturning to the Paseo de Colón theater after fifteen years of absence from our city, this time with his own company and the public never forgot him. He spent twenty years at the head of the National Dance Company, which visited the theaters of Seville and the Itálica Dance Festival on numerous occasions, and always managed to fill the places.
He finally returned to his company accompanied by his team, made up of Emilia Jovanovich and Luis Martin Oya, who are also in charge of the Academy where the company is created and direct its rehearsals.
‘Elf’ The first play in the Maestranza program was premiered in Spain in December 1992 and a year earlier by the Nederlands Dans Theater in The Hague.
Duato is a choreographer passionate about music and in this case with the works of Debussy has created a universe composed of haikus danced in the form of steps in pairs, in threes and solos, which are a delight of movement and above all elegance. The difficulty and profusion of gestures, postures, steps and turns show us a company that knows how to develop the Duato aesthetic, solidly anchored in dance above all, avoiding the easy but also the ordinary. Everything in “Duende” is poetry.
‘Na Floresta’ It is a work that we saw in Seville 20 years ago performed by the National Dance Company. In this case Duato chose the music of Heitor Villa-Lobos and Wagner Tisso. The piece was created by the National Dance Company in the Generalife gardens of the Alhambra in June 1993.
In the background, the landscape insinuates itself into a musical triptych which recreates the beauty of the Amazonian jungle, drawing directly from folklore the very essence of its splendor, and this is why Duato creates more primary movements, not exempt from difficulty, but with more lyricism.
Duato’s choreography is poetry again. He does not want or hear any specific message, but rather lets himself be carried away by the wonderful musical score. compose a choreographic symphony of great quality.
It is a more group choreography, and this is where we see the Duato who knows how to move in this case twelve dancers on stage, giving each one their personality and highlighting that communion with Nature that the choreographer wants to achieve, and he does it through a young and enthusiastic cast, which compensates for the lack of stage with intense energy and a youthful genius that attracts attention.
Behind this cast, and knowing the choreographer and teacher, there must have been many hours of rehearsals and lessons, we know that Duato is very demanding when it comes to staging his works, and with his company it was not going to be less so.
And finally, ‘Cantus’, his most recent work, from 2024, created specifically for his young company and this changes the register. From poetry and lyricism, Duato takes us into the current epic to talk about the horrors of a war conflict through the eyes of young people trapped in the middle of war and how violence and destruction affects their lives. With the exciting music of Karl Jenkins‘Cantus’ is pure emotion, it’s much harder, more energetic work in which the dancers. Dressed in black, they perform a more earthy and less aerial dance, an almost protest dance which ultimately attempts to give a halo of hope.
Special mention to all the rooms, the impeccable lighting designed by Nicolas Fischtel, spectacularly beautiful.
Nacho Duato is back in Seville and the city recognizes him as the choreographer who once revolutionized dance in Spain and who is still there.
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