Israel Galván

La Consagración de la Primavera

Concept and choreography

Israel Galván

With

Israel Galván (dance)

Daria van den Bercken, Gerard Bouwhuis (piano)


Music

"Le Sacre du Printemps" by Igor Stravinsky


Reduction for piano for four hands by the composer, here with two pianos

“Sonata K87” by Domenico Scarlatti

“Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues” by Frederic Rzewski

“Sevillana del siglo XVIII”

Sound

Pedro León / Félix Vázquez

Lights

Benito Jiménez / Valentin Donaire

Costumes


Micol Notarianni

Technical director

Pedro León

Stage manager

Balbi Parra

Management

Rosario Gallardo

Distribution

Rial & Eshelman


Production

IGalván Company

Coproducers


Théâtre de la Ville - Paris, Sadler’s Wells - London, -Lausanne, Théâtre de Nîmes, Scène conventionnée d’intérêt national - art et création - Danse contemporaine, Teatro della Pergola - Fondazione Teatro della Toscana - Florence, MA scène nationale – Pays de Montbéliard, Théâtre de Vidy-Lausanne

With the support of

INAEM-Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música, La Loterie Romande, Pro Helvetia, Fondation suisse pour la culture du Canton de Vaud, Fondation Leenaards, Flamenco Biënnale Nederland


[The program can be also presented with local pianists]

“He is a Barbarian endowed with every commodity” said Debussy of his friend Stravinsky. And indeed, reaching the right blend of science and savagery may be the major difficulty when it comes to Rite of Spring. As prompted Leonard Bernstein: “This piece used to be considered practically unplayable back in 1913 and through the 20s and into the 30s”. How does one tackle this mixture of brute force and refinement, of telluric quakes and melodies? How to apprehend these rhythms so foreign to Western music and puzzled even Pierre Boulez? On what undiscovered part of the globe can these – sometimes creaky – tributes to folkloric Slavic music be taken?

Everyone remembers the outrage when the work first premiered with the Ballets Russes at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées: a pitched battle… spiraling into a battle with no pitch at all – and becoming one of the greatest artistic scandals of the 20th Century. Yet in spite of its famed difficulty, the music echoes a pulsation so profound, so primary that Rite of Spring has eventually become a classic of both music and dance, inspiring choreographers as diverse as Martha Graham, Maurice Béjart, Pina Bausch, Angelin Preljocaj…


Israel Galván destabilizes with a regularity of his own, offering shows both joyous and austere, provoking without any deliberate provocation all sorts of shivers and quakes. The expression of a freedom both inspired as ingenuous, and of a trajectory which cultivates continuity in ruptures, and logically pursues its course with Stravinsky. Guided by the two pianists, Galván is seen here for the first time confronted to a music score... Which does mean not that everything is already written. To these three intrepid artists, to these seekers of untold stories, Rite of Spring offers the most seductive dangers. And they are set on exposing the musical colossus to reveal its freaky bones, which defy all laws of musical anatomy. Moreover, they’re trying to recapture the essence, the music before the paper. Finding novelty, while respecting the text will thus be a new kind of madness… (Lola Gruber)


tour dates

Germany Ludwigsburg, Schloss Festspiele 20-21 May 2023

Netherlands Arnhem Piano Biënnale 23 April 2023

Italy Brescia, Teatro Grande 3 March 2023 (with pianists Andrea Rebaudengo, Valentina Messa)

France Montpellier Danse, Opéra Berlioz | Le Corum 24 February 2023 (with pianists David Kadouch and David Bismuth)

United Kingdom London, Sadler's Wells 25-26 November 2022

Germany Heidelberg, HebelHalle 19 November 2022 (with pianists Darya Dadykina, Vitaliy Kyianytsia)

France Pau Zenith 14 March 2022

France Sainte-Maxime Carré 11 March 2022

France Perpignan L’Arcipel 8 March 2022

Germany Koln, Stastenhaus, 4-5 March 2022

Netherlands Amsterdam, Flamenco Biennale, Nederland Stadsschouwburg 10 November 2021

France Metz, Theatre Arsenal, 29 September 2021

Romania Sibiu International Festival, Thalia Hall 25 - 26 August 2021 (with pianists Andrada Ștefan & Sabina Oprea)

Japan Aichi Prefectural Art Theatre 23 -24 June 2021 (with pianists Shu Katayama, Tatsuto Masuda)

Japan Yokohama Kanagawa Arts Theatre 18 -20 June 2021 (with pianists Shu Katayama, Tatsuto Masuda)

France Gradignan Theatre des Quatre Saisons 10 March 2020

France Paris Théâtre de la Ville 7-15 January 2020

Switzerland Lausanne Théâtre Vidy 23-28 November 2019 (opening)

©Jean Louis Duzert / ©Laurent Philippe / ©Leonardo Rossi

Born in Sevilla, Spain, into the dancing family of José Galván and Eugenia de los Reyes, Israel Galván underwent classical flamenco training but since his first creation ¡Mira! / Los zapatos rojos (1998), that paves the way for a manifesto for a new spirit of flamenco dance, he has gradually transformed into un unclassified dancer and choreographer. Galván recodifies the physical language of flamenco, using not only modes of expression genealogically close to it, such as bullfighting, but also performative aspects of other rituals of popular culture, from football to activism and cross-dressing. He produces a multiplicity of bodies for a flamenco that is itself going through a process of change. Each of his creations is to be a milestone in his pursuit of a dance that seeks to free itself from certain features inherited from a crystallized flamenco. He wants to refocus dance on the actual act of dancing.

Israel Galván was honoured with the most prestigious prizes such as the Premio Nacional de Danza (Spain), the New York Bessie Performance Award, the National Dance Award for Exceptional Artistry (UK). In 2016, he was promoted to the rank of Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France.