JRT

The work of the three dancers produces a show, but the main idea is to work, the “choreutic” work, the pursuit of the flamenco gesture, of Julio Romero de Torres’ flamenco making. Afterwards, all these works are framed and presented in paintings and put on in a theatre, among other things because one of Romero de Torres’ important discoveries has to do with this symbolic theatricalisation of painting, this work of the painting not as a window to reality but as a space for symbolic representations, small theatres, moments in which the gesture stops –we would say the image freezes-, and connotes a powerful set of meanings.

In fact, theatres such as the Lope de Vega in Seville, the Villamarta in Jerez and the Gran Teatro in Córdoba have been a reference for the stage space. Their stage boxes, the volutes of their frames and the curtains provide a kind of meta-theatrical space. A theatre that speaks of theatre. It is within these frames that Julio Romero de Torres put flamenco into practice. That is why each of his paintings is a choreography. It has been fundamental that the MNAC in Barcelona, the MNCARS in Madrid and, of course, the Julio Romero de Torres museum in Córdoba have been involved in the project, allowing access to their rooms to rehearse there, in front of the paintings themselves. In addition, during these rehearsal days, audiovisual resources were recorded that will later form an intrinsic and fundamental part of the show itself. And, of course, the enthusiasm of Alfredo Lagos, who will work with Gema Caballero and Elena Morales, with Antonio Duro and Proyecto Lorca, on the entire musical score. There they all are, with Julio Romero de Torres, the guitar enthusiast – he collected and played them –, the budding dancer, the one who wanted to be a singer and entered competitions and sang his lyrics through the streets of Córdoba: “Up the street, down the street, how that body that I loved so much walked last night!”