TODAY (Saturday) is 'International Dance Day' – and to celebrate, Spain's National Ballet held its dress rehearsal in the street in full view of the public.
The accidental audience watched transfixed as the company performed Alento, which roughly translates as 'encouragement', in full costume – a production that combines four very Spanish dance styles in one show.
Classical ballet – with a Spanish touch – together with bolero, flamenco and folkloric dance all merge together for a spectacular mise en scène which would have cost a theatre audience a hefty sum for a ticket, but which for passers-by in Madrid outside the company headquarters in the old abattoir, was completely free of charge.
And they were even able to film it on their mobiles and take selfies with the performance in the background – something they would not be able to do in a theatre.
Alento was composed by Fernando Egozcue and fleshed out by the Madrid Regional Orchestra (ORCAM), although the nine dancers in black costume who performed the first act, Origin, and the two who performed the second act, Light – Míriam Mendoza and Sergio Bernal – did so to a recorded soundtrack.
Next, five dancers took to the impromptu pavement stage for the third act, Souls – Débora Martínez, María Fernández, Sara Arévalo, Patricia Fernández and Cristina Aguilera (not to be confused with the American-Ecuadorian pop diva Christina Aguilera) – and another nine danced the fourth act, Stalking.
The fifth act was a solo with castañets, Being, starring Inmaculada Salomón, and the entire Spanish National Ballet (BNE) company joined in the sixth and final part, Alento, again with the typical-of-Spain castañets and, this time, using chairs as props.
They were rewarded by vigorous applause and cheering by over 200 members of the public who happened to be passing at the time.
Artistic director and choreographer Antonio Najarro read out a manifesto to mark International Dance Day, proclaimed 35 years ago by UNESCO and the International Dance Committee, which included a homage to ballerina Trisha Brown who died on March 18.
“I hope this has been one more small step forward towards putting our art on the map, as it deserves,” concluded Najarro as the public whooped and clapped whilst the dancers responded by clacking their castañets.
Photograph, from YouTube, shows the Spanish National Ballet (BNE) performing Alento
