Materials for a danced biography based on Vicente Escudero and his ingenuity
DurationeitherApproximate time: 60 minutes
Premiered at El Dorado, a flamenco society in Barcelona, in June 2021.
«I would like to dance like a real fool, in front of an orchestra that had lost its sheet music and each musician played whatever came into his head. And even better if they didn't even know music!» (V. Escudero, Mi Baile, 1947)
This vegetarian flamenco artist, who wrote, painted and danced whatever he wanted, filled his life with daring, aesthetic and a way of doing things that were absolutely new for his time. In Paris, his inventions and adventures faced the avant-garde. However, when he returned to Spain he had to defend his flamenco from tradition and essence. I was born in Jerez the year he died in Barcelona.
I look in the mirror and I see not only his body and his gestures, but also his journeys, his difficulties in learning and becoming a found out of the beat, its circumstances… and that Spain about to explode. Many things resonate with me.
I try to dance his seguiriya and I don't pay attention to his Decalogue of male dance. If I try, will I become one?
I soak up their ideas, their madness and their lies, and I never lose the smile on my face. I am inspired by their energy, I detect the differences that I imprint on them by reactivating their dance in me and I connect to their life forever.
History gains movement every time it is recovered, and if Escudero was avant-garde by nature and traditional by necessity... will the same thing happen to me?
Leonor Leal
Artistic file:
Lecture, research and dance: Leonor Leal
Research support: Victoria Perez Royo
Contributions to the process: Antonio Moreno
Guitar in audios: Alfredo Lagos
Utrera – Seville.
+34 606 892 717
Utrera – Seville.
+34 606 892 717 – +34 665 680 058