The work of distortion as a mode of tuning form is now the starting point for choreographer and dancer Juan Carlos Lérida for this site-specific improvisation. Lérida enters the Museum space to inhabit it and encounter those forms that, through light and the people who traverse it, modify perception and emotion.

Juan Carlos Lérida is a dancer, choreographer and flamenco pedagogue, Extraordinary Prize winner 2007 from the Institut del Teatre de Barcelona. Since 2002 he has been a professor of Flamenco, Contemporary Dance and Composition at the Institut del Teatre. He has directed shows for Belén Maya, Marco Flores among others.

He has also created different solo pieces such as "The Art of War" or the trilogy on the bodies of flamenco. He curated the Empirical Flamenco cycle at Mercat de les Flors and is currently curator of the flamenco festival Tanzhaus (Dusseldorf). He is recognized as one of the current representatives of avant-garde flamenco. His latest creation: The Liturgy of the Hours (Mercat de les Flors, 2021) has been awarded best show and best dancer at the critics' awards (recomana.cat) in 2022. He has just published the book "The Empirical Flamenco Method".

Artistic credits:

Performance and direction: Juan Carlos Lérida

The April in Dance Festival returns with the "MACA EN VIVO" program that celebrates its third edition. Expanded programming carried out from the direction of April in Dance in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art of Alicante (MACA) and the Museum Consortium. An extensive proposal of various interventions related to dance, performance and live arts that begins on April 26 with Sharon Fridman, Max Award 2019 winner, which is included within the Festival's programming and we will continue until October with the premiere of Elias Aguirre (May), Juan Carlos Lérida (June), Daniel Abreu (September) and the Elelei Company (October).

Performance by 5th and 6th Year Students of Contemporary Dance from the José Espadero Professional Dance Conservatory in Alicante.

Once again, as has been tradition at the Museum for the past ten years, dance takes over the different rooms with a performance by Contemporary Dance students from the Professional Dance Conservatory who will present a traveling show through all the rooms of the Museum.

Free admission until capacity is reached.

AD LIBITUM how I have freed myself from my chains

Ad libitum is for Andrés Marín to dance to the beat of his own will, at full rein, from a total freedom, an overwhelming improvisation. And, above all, from a total availability to the moment, to the place, to the other, whether found on stage or among the audience. The choreographer lets his body speak, which has so much to say and imposes itself on him, breaking the shackles of reason. To heed the demands of that body and bring it into dialogue with the inherited and assimilated sediments that are the foundation of a patiently accumulated flamenco knowledge. Andrés Marín has learned to unlearn and has understood what Antonio Machado said when he wrote "Traveler, there is no path, the path is made by walking." It is what he proposes in this solo: to build before us a path through which he invites us to penetrate the depth of the seguiriya or the rhythm of the bulería and offers us his dance as an act of freedom

ANDRÉS MARÍN

National Dance Prize 2022

Giraldillo for Dance 2020

Andrés Marín is one of the most singular flamenco dancers in the current flamenco panorama. His productions have focused on flamenco tradition and specifically on classical cantes, but not from a conventional perspective, but rather through a highly personal style and an aesthetic of absolute contemporaneity. Choreographic, artistic and musical director of his own company, his creations reflect the expressive freedom of a profound artistic research. From there is born a poetics rich in suggestive images, at the service of his commitment to art and to himself. At present he stands as one of the great renovators of the genre.

Andrés Marín was born in Seville in 1969. Son of flamenco artists, he has lived art since childhood, both through dance in his father's school and through cante, of which he is a great enthusiast and deep connoisseur. If there is a trait that defines his trajectory, it would be that of independence and non-affiliation to any company or school beyond paternal teaching. An unclassifiable autodidact, he began his professional career in 1992 as a soloist and choreographer for various shows and events until founding his own company in 2002.

In all of Andrés Marín's works, experimentation and risk reign, elements that the artist considers essential for flamenco art to remain alive: Beyond Time (2002), Asymmetries (2004), The Dawn of the Last Day (2006), Avant-Garde Jonda (2006), The Sky of Your Mouth (2008), The Passion as One Sees It (2010), Op.24 (2011), Marrow (2012), Ad Libitum (2014), Yatra (2015), Blank Canvas (2015), D.Quixote (2017), The Perfect Vigil (2020) and Ecstasy Ravel (2021). His creations have been welcomed by the main European circuits, both of the flamenco genre and contemporary dance, among which are the Maison de la Danse in Lyon, the Teatros del Canal in Madrid, the Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris, Sadler's Wells in London, the Flamenco Biennial in Seville, Montpellier Danse, the Musée National Picasso-Paris, the Opera of Lille, the Lucent DansTheater in The Hague, the National Opera of Latvia, the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, the MC2: Grenoble, Festival de Danse de Cannes, the Biennial of Flamenco Art in Paris, the Festival de Nîmes, the Festival de Jerez, Flamenco Comes from the South, the Salle Pleyel in Paris, the ¡Mira! Festival or the Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona.

A restless artist, always in search of new ways to immerse flamenco tradition in uncharted waters, Andrés Marín has collaborated with artists from various disciplines throughout his career in the conviction that flamenco can dialogue without complexes with other arts:

Pilar Albarracín, visual artist. Video action "I Will Dance on Your Grave" (2004) Blanca Li, choreographer. "Poet in New York" (2007-2008) Nominated for the Max Awards as Best Male Dance Performance for his role as Lorca. Llorenç Barber, experimental composer (bells). "The Sky of Your Mouth" (2008-2011) Bartabas, director of the equestrian and musical theater Zíngaro. "Golgotha" (2013-2016) Kader Attou, hip-hop dancer and director of the National Choreographic Center of La Rochelle (CCN) "Encounters" (2014) and "Yatra" (2015-2018) Ensemble Divana, musicians from Rajasthan. World Sacred Spirit Festival 2016, Jodpur (India) Laurent Berger, playwright and contemporary theater director. "D.Quixote" (2017-2019) Marie-Agnés Gillot, Étoile dancer. Christian Rizzo, choreographer, audiovisual artist. "Magma" (2019-2021) José Miguel Pereñíguez, visual artist. "The Perfect Vigil" (2020) Jon Maya, Basque dantzari. "Yarin" (2022)

The artist combines his choreographic and artistic activity with the direction of Andrés Marín Flamenco Abierto, a production office and dance studio of his own based in Seville.

[caption id="attachment_33761" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Andrés Marín in a moment of his show Blank Canvas. My Impure Flamenco' ©Javier Fergo[/caption]

From the Height of Tall Buildings

Choreographic Poem (Contemporary Dance) inspired by the homonymous poems about the 2 great universal, timeless and intergenerational enigmas, love and death, written by Billy Cowie himself and virtuously performed by Luciana Croatto in a universe of movements, choreographic structures and rhythms foreign to the times of current hypercapitalism. The music has been created especially for the work.

From the Height of Tall Buildings is a thirty-minute solo dance around the two great themes, Love and Death. As for the question of love, we have a timeless setting, the enigma of love, why do we fall in and out of love?, what happens with unrequited love?... With respect to death, we face the enigma of what happens afterwards (if anything happens) and how we give meaning to life while we continuously face this inevitability. In From the Height of Tall Buildings, the questions about these themes are articulated through various poetic texts, music and dance.

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Choreography: Billy Cowie.

Dancer / Performer: Luciana Croatto.

Musical Composition: Billy Cowie.

Voice-over: Clara García Fraile.

Texts: Billy Cowie.

Lighting: Rodrigo Ortega Portillo.

Production Director: Samuel Retortillo.

Production Company: Madrugada producciones.

Co-production: Choreographic Center of La Rioja.

Research Support: International Film, Dance and New Media Festival, FIVER.

Creation Support: Government of La Rioja

Sol Picó proposes an intimate talk to us, as if she were speaking to us from the sofa of her home, about her 20 years of professional career: fears, doubts, unconfessable failures, unrealized dreams...the procession goes on inside...

She will reveal to us how and when inspiration arrives and what happens if it doesn't.

She refreshes our memory through suggestive images of her beginnings and explains to us what a life dedicated to dance in body and soul represents for her: being a woman, mother and artist, an explosive cocktail difficult to avoid exploding in your hands.

Sacrifice and fun accompanied by an exceptional team for 20 years, which has led her to travel to more than 30 countries and to experience how her Mediterranean dance is received in Beijing, Kinshasa or Paris.

She will speak and will ask us questions because she is very interested in what we think, the spectators of this world...are you ready?

Sol Picó is a Spanish dancer and choreographer. Born in Alcoy, she has studied Spanish, classical and contemporary dance and in her productions she combines different techniques and languages in a groundbreaking way. In 1993 she creates the Sol Picó Company with which she has become one of the most unorthodox choreographers and dancers on the Spanish contemporary scene. She has been awarded numerous prizes. In her track record she has more than 10 Max awards, the National Dance Prize of Catalonia (2004), the Barcelona City Dance Prize (2015), the National Dance Prize 2016 and the Cross of Sant Jordi.

Tenacious and daring, Sol Picó develops a 100x100 personal movement based on precision, speed, vitality and power. Her shows –mature, imaginative and always controversial– move the audience and do not leave them indifferent. The quality of her proposals and the humor and dialogue with the spectators are the essence of the work of this challenging and enterprising choreographer. Throughout her career she has premiered more than 30 shows, where theater in small venues is combined with large street productions that she has presented throughout the world, visiting more than 40 countries. Some of her most emblematic pieces are Bésame el Cactus, Paella Mixta, Amor Diesel, El lago de las moscas, Sirena en la Plancha, One-hit wonders, Dancing with frogs, We Women or Malditas Plumas. The creative facet is also nurtured by the pedagogical one, teaching workshops in places such as Carlos III University, the National Dance Academy of Rome or superior Dance conservatories.

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Performance and music by students of 5th and 6th year Professional Studies at the Rafael Rodríguez Albert Conservatory of Muchamiel

Gelabert has selected some of his favorite solos, presented over the years in theaters in many places around the world and adapted to the characteristics of the place and occasion. In them, he introduces the different pieces with brief comments, whether they are references to the work or personal ones, explanations about their meaning or general ideas about dance, anecdotes or comments of the moment.

It is a way of communicating with the spectators and introducing them to the works they are going to see, and I have been able to verify that it helps establish a complicity and a relaxed and suggestive atmosphere.

This year we celebrate 11 years since the launch of the Festival Abril en Danza. In this new edition we are going to give voice and prominence to artists from diverse generations. It seems urgent to us that emerging artists and Companies begin to find their place, but without losing the experience and accumulated wisdom of our references. Linking the youngest creation with projects that have been maintained over time throughout the years, a matter that we know is very complicated in this Country, is fundamental for the development, respect and consolidation of our profession.

For all these reasons we have sought a range of proposals and body languages, developed from different visions and by artists from diverse generations. Artists of all ages who will take a journey through dance throughout the month of April in the cities of Alicante and Elche. A plurality of universes and visual poetics, where the perspective of young emerging artists is added, leading us to the most current creation, together with the pieces of artists in their maturity period, where mastery and professional trajectory give them an already established character and style of their own.

The Festival once again features the "MACA EN VIVO" program which celebrates its second edition. Expanded programming in collaboration with the MACA and the Museum Consortium. An extensive proposal of several interventions related to performance and live arts that begins in April with Janet Novas, 2021 critical eye award winner, who will be programmed in April.

She draws inspiration from the everyday aspects of living. Physical theater becomes a central axis. Absurdity, poetry, and physicality combine narratively. Humor and transformation are essential parts of her pieces. Nadine has developed her work with companies and choreographers in Canada, Germany, and also from her platform based in Barcelona.

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