Flamenco is not only a visual feast but also a soul resonance and salvation of its dance forms are rich in solo, duo, group, fighting ...... want to enjoy all these dance forms at once the best carrier is to see a classic flamenco dance drama in the theater Spain flamenco classic dance drama "Carmen".

The theatre version of Carmen was conceived roughly at the same time as the shooting of Carlos Saura's film. The film's success, which took even Gades and Saura by surprise, encouraged Antonio Gades to produce a version for the theatre that turned out to be another masterpiece in the line of Blood Wedding and Flamenco Suite. The premiere in Paris in 1983 was a considerable popular and critical success, revealing Antonio Gades to be not only one of the most important dancers in the world but also one of the greatest choreographers.

Antonio Gades' reasons for creating this work can be summed up in the ideas that he explained in a press conferences. In his view 'Carmen is neither a frivolous woman nor a man-eater. She's just an honest woman who when she loves says she loves and when she doesn't love and says she doesn't. In other words, a free woman.'

Referring to the success of Carmen all over the world, Antonio mentioned the French critics who said that 'Merimée brought Carmen to France but we've taken her back to Spain.'

The Antonio Gades Company

Just months before he passed away, Antonio Gades created a Foundation in charge of looking after his artistic heritage and helping to disseminate his work, promoting a greater knowledge of Spanish dance all over the world. Back on the stage at the request of this Foundation, the Antonio Gades Company is now solely responsible for staging the ballets of the choreographer from Alicante, keeping the original spirit and guidelines his works were devised with intact.

Under the artistic direction of Stella Arauzo (who danced with Gades for many years, taking over from Cristina Hoyos in the performance of Carmen), and technical direction of Dominique You (so many years the illuminator and right arm of the Maestro), the new formation has several members from the old company who, together with new faces, ensure the transmission of the lines which characterize the work of Gades, expressing the most profound human concerns, within a aesthetically refined language rooted in the traditions and culture of the Spanish people.

After performing Carmen in the Roman Theatre, and touring almost constantly since them, the Antonio Gades Company has recovered for the stage Carmen, Bodas de Sangre, Suite Flamencaand more recently Fuenteovejuna. His work has not only been endorsed by the large number of spectators who have gone to the shows but also the awards received such as the Giraldillo de Oro of the Flamenco Biennial from Seville, the Demófilo award from the Fundación Machado and the award of the Teatro Rojas in Toledo which fills the company with special pride since it is awarded by the public.

Antonio Gades Choreographer / Dancer

Pilar López gave Antonio Gades the stage name Antonio Gades when taking him into her company about 1952, when he was sixteen. He had had some classes from La Palitos, and before that this lad, who had to leave school at the age of eleven and mature before time, had done many other things: a photographer's assistant, apprentice bullfighter, errand boy, paper boy at a newspaper ... He began at the bottom of Pilar López's company and worked his way up to first dancer. Gades has declared on more than one occasion that he has to thank Pilar for teaching him the ethics of dance before aesthetics. Her opinion of her former pupil is that he was 'Very sensible, very educated, very restless. Very restless, sometimes for good and sometimes for bad. However he is searching, always searching, searching.

The idea of the dancer must be set aside to enter the universal concept of an artist'. Antonio Gades has a very clear idea that he does not feel an artist. Two hours of exercise daily, always, to keep in shape, and an unlimited time of work when rehearsing a work to stage. In the mid 60s Antonio Gades created what must be considered his first work of renovation, Don Juan by Alfredo Maras, in which the young José Granero, who had reached Spain a few years before, collaborated with him. Remembering that moment, he has told the author: 'I consider the person who renewed dance was Antonio Gades, mankind changed his view of dance due to Antonio Gades. He took a line. A Don Juan we did at the beginning, there a new way to do things began to take shape, there we began to work with new forms, trying to find new trends'. From there on one may speak of the major work by the dancer, the one he would perform at the head of his own companies, with full responsibility for the creative processes. In it there are, among all others, three titles of special importance. The three were exceptional successes, in the theater as well as the cinema, a media they entered due to Carlos Saura which brought them an unprecedented worldwide fame. These are Crónica del suceso de Bodas de sangre and El Amor Brujo.