El Itálica International Dance Festival raises the curtain on its 2025 edition with one of the most anticipated premieres of the year on the contemporary flamenco scene: Straight and Solo, the new creation of Andres Marin, National Dance Award 2022. The show, which is presented for the first time in Spain on 3 June at 22:30 p.m. in the Cortijo de Cuarto, is one of the festival's major bets and one of the four notable premieres of this edition.
Conceived, directed and performed by Marín himself, Straight and Solo It is a radically personal proposal that proposes a review of dance flamenco masculine through a contemporary, free and deeply identity-based perspective. In dialogue with the thought and aesthetics of the pioneer Vicente Escudero –key figure in the history of flamenco and the performing arts of the 20th century–, Marín constructs a piece that moves between tradition and subversion, exploring the body as a territory of experimentation, memory and freedom.Straight and Solo It's almost an autobiographical proposal. I look at Vicente Escudero to look at myself, to understand where we are, what unites us and what differentiates us. I'm interested in his world and its multiple layers, his way of relating to different arts. For me, flamenco He has been a teacher, a vehicle of knowledge and expression,” says Andrés Marín.
→ See the Italica Dance Festival in the Agenda here expoflamenco.
During the presentation of the show, the provincial deputy of Culture, Casimiro Fernandez, thanked Andrés Marín "for joining us today for this informative meeting about the launch of the Itálica International Dance Festival, because for the Provincial Council, which organizes the Festival, it is an honor to have an artist like him, a benchmark in Spanish dance, a National Prize winner, coming to Itálica with a show that is a national premiere and to give prestige to this event."
The MP also emphasized the institution's firm commitment to cultural management, asserting that "culture is an investment, and I believe it creates a better society for all Sevillians." Along these lines, he encouraged "all dance and culture lovers to enjoy this top-quality program with us."
For his part, the festival director, Pedro Chicharro, has pointed out that "Andrés Marín's premiere symbolizes very well the essence of this edition: a dance that questions, that dialogues with history and the present, that is built from artistic freedom and thought." In his opinion, Straight and Solo It is “one of those works that can only happen in a place like Itálica, where heritage, contemporaneity, and mutual listening between artists and audiences create a unique experience.”
«Conceived, directed and performed by Marín himself, 'Recto y Solo' is a radically personal proposal that proposes a revision of dance flamenco masculine through a contemporary, free and deeply identity-based perspective"
Accompanied on stage by the guitarist Pedro Barragan, Straight and Solo finds in music an architecture that is as precise as it is emotional. Barragán, trained at the Liceu Conservatory in Barcelona and the Cristina Heeren Foundation, has shared the stage with legendary figures such as Chano Lobato o Fernando de la Morena, and is currently an assistant professor at the foundation. His guitar, with its deep, deep, and contemporary sensibility, provides a sonic narrative that sustains and enhances the uniqueness of Marín's dance.
The opening evening on June 3rd opens at 21:30pm with Lucia Live, a vibrant flamenco dance concert in which Lucia Alvarez La Pinona shares her inner playlist and reveals her personal sound, aesthetic and artistic imagination, as spiritual as it is wild. Accompanied by her flamenco band —with Manuel Pajares al cante, Ramon Amador on the guitar, Juanfe Perez at low and Javier Rabadan on the drums—, the dancer breaks the usual structure of dance shows to offer a vehement, vitalist and open-to-the-moment proposal. Co-directed with Sara Arguijo and with stage direction by Alberto Velasco, Lucia Live It is presented as a concert where the movement is inspired by artists such as Manzanita, Camarón, María Jiménez or Joaquín Rodrigo, and where the seguiriyas, peteneras, bulerías or rumbas connect with what jondo more genuine, the scoundrel, the quinqui and the psychedelic in a free and contemporary tribute to the legacy of flamenco.
Organized by the Provincial Council of Seville, The Italica International Dance Festival 2025 will be held from June 3 to 28 in two exceptional venues: the Cortijo de Cuarto, in the first half of the month, and the Roman Theatre of Italica, in the second. With twelve national and international companies, The competition brings together three world premieres and one national premiere, in an edition that builds bridges between the roots and the avant-garde, between the body and thought, between memory and the future.
Artists such as Paula Cometre to After You, Madam, Marco Vargas and Chloe Brule to 24, the premiere of Luz Arcas/La Pharmaco to Lullaby for Emmy Hennings, The company of Oulouy to African Party, the aforementioned Lucía Álvarez La Piñona, the premiere of Lucia Vazquez to On a clear moonlit night, and the Germans Tanzensemble Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, directed by Luisa Sancho.
From June 17, the action moves to the imposing Roman Theatre of Italica, where the National Ballet of Spain will open the second phase with GenerationsDirected by Ruben Olmo. They will follow the Norwegian National Dance Company (Carte Blanche) to Cobra Hollow, the Johan Inger's Youth Project to Momentum, and Serge Bernal, which will close the festival with Rodin, a powerful symphony of bodies inspired by the French sculptor.
Itálica thus consolidates its position as one of the leading contemporary dance venues in Europe, a festival that looks out over the world from Seville and that each year transforms its heritage into a living stage of creation, emotion, and thought in motion.
