SOLO

Israel Galvàn

Live performance

MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Pass Latitudes
50min

After Madrid, New York, Belgrade, Paris, Palermo and Seville, it will be in the big hall of MUba Eugène Leroy, in Tourcoing, that the icon of contemporary flamenco brings his SOLO to Latitudes Contemporaines.

For more than 25 years, Israel Galván has been creating an aesthetic and musical revolution in flamenco. Originally trained by his parents at their studio, he then worked with the great choreographer Mario Maya, refusing all attempts to force him into the traditional codes of flamenco dance, while not entirely abandoning them either. His work follows a third path. Traditionally, a bailaor, a flamenco dancer, dialogues with the cantaores (singers) or the musicians. In SOLO, he appears alone, without music, without lighting, without a set: his body creating the line between dance and music, returning to the true essence of flamenco. SOLO is like an intimate laboratory, fluid and free, where the dancer goes deep inside himself, allowing us to feel, live and raw – all the complexity of the different galaxies of flamenco.

Biography(s)

Israel Galván de los Reyes stands out for proposing an expressive language of his own, not only as a dancer, but also as a scenic creator. A language, unknown until now in flamenco dancing, based on fragmentations, mixtures and sums of gestures.
Winner of the National Dance Award 2005 (in the Creation category) granted by the Spanish Ministry of Culture, “for his ability to generate in an art like flamenco a new creation without forgetting the true roots that have sustained it to this day and that constitute it as a universal genre,” he has also received other awards during his career, such as in 2012 a Bessie Award and the Medalla de Oro al Mérito en las Bellas Artes. In 2016, he was appointed Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the Republic of France by the French Ministry of Culture. He has also received a number of other awards during his career, including a total of six Premios Max de Artes Escénicas and the Barcelona Critics’ Award in 2014 and 2018. In 2021 his production Maestro de Barra received two Bessie awards.
The son of the Sevillian flamenco dancers José Galván and Eugenia de Los Reyes, from the age of five he began to experience the atmosphere of the flamenco venues, parties and dance academies where his father took him. But it was not until 1990 that he found his vocation for dancing.
In 1994, he joined the recently created Compañía Andaluza de Danza, directed by Mario Maya, beginning an unstoppable career. In 1998, he presented ¡Mira! / Los Zapatos Rojos [Look ! The Red Shoes], the first show by his own company, which was praised as brilliant by all the specialist critics, and represented a revolution in the conception of flamenco shows. That was followed by: La Metamorfosis (2000); Galvánicas (2002); Arena (2004); La Edad de Oro (2005); Tábula Rasa (2006); Solo (2007); El Final de Este Estado de cosas, Redux (2008); La Curva (2010); Lo Real / Le Réel / The Real (2012), a particular reflection on the gypsy holocaust under the Nazi regime; FLA.CO.MEN (2014); Torobaka (2014), a collaboration between him and Akram Khan; La Fiesta (2017); Coplas Mecánicas (2018), together with El Niño de Elche; Gatomaquia (2018); and Israel & Israel (2019), the product of a two-year collaboration with YCAM | Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media. Also in 2019, he premiered El Amor Brujo with David Lagos and Alejandro Rojas-Marcos, and Stravinsky’s La Consagración de la Primavera / The Rite of Spring. In 2020 again with El Niño de Elche he premiered a new production, Mellizo Doble. In 2021 during the pandemic he conceived and interpreted a short movie Maestro de Barra. In July 2022 he presented a new work, Seises, at Grec Festival in Barcelona, including the children’s choir of Escolania de Monserrat. Israel Galván is also featured in a Netflix docuseries about dance called Move.
He is an associated artist at Le Théâtre de la Ville, Paris.

Credits

Artistic direction, Choreography and Dance : Israel Galván
Technical director and Sound: Pedro León
Management: Rosario Gallardo
Production: IGalván Company
in collaboration with INAEM