Destiny, freedom, intuition, childhood, muses, symbols, allegories, symbols and luck. Picasso felt, oversaw and painted. He was an artist who got lost in his pieces with tremendous solitude on the path of his artistic achievement. Without this isolation, his uncommon style of artistic technique would not be evident.
To commemorate the cubist painter's vivid legacy, the choreographer and dancer Carlos Rodriguez's team performed his creation "Picasso Eterno" ("Eternal Picasso") at Istanbul's Atatürk Cultural Center (AKM) as part of Beyoğlu Culture Road, conveying the passionate feelings of Picasso in a dazzling ensemble.
"Picasso Eterno" by Rodriquez, who is the founder of "Rojas y Rodriguez," one of the most successful flamenco ensembles of Spain, is an expression in the dance of tracing where the muses of the painter come from, seeking answers in his intense pictorial world. "Eterno's" great strength is having brought together a cast of excellent dancers, veterans and younger ones, headed by the director of the National Dance Company, Joaquin de Luz.
"Eterno" breaks the rules of a dance show, deconstructing Piccaso's creative process, approaching his figure from multiple perspectives, and assuming the artist's theses, "art is a lie that makes us realize the truth" and "we destroy to create." For this, the show is divided into two pieces.
The first part of the ensemble, a two-act performance consisting of two different choreographic parts, is a work that renews and explores original, aesthetic forms with flamenco roots and contemporary spirit. Having narrative features, it is conveyed to the audience through visuals. Also, addressing the artist's most private and personal obsessions, this first act includes an original symphonic musical composition by Lucas Vidal – a two-time Goya Award winner Spanish composer who became the youngest Berklee College of Music student ever to compose and record the score to a feature film with a full orchestra and is best known for scores such as "Fast & Furious 6."
The second part is a suite that goes through different flamenco styles with an eclectic act that rescues the stylization of Spanish dance, providing it with scenic freshness and innovation. Powerful dances, Andalusian flamenco aesthetics, and original musical compositions showcase the versatility of the dancers and musicians. The choreography reflects the movement and emotion of the artists to reveal their purity and truth, and acts as a counterbalance to the concept of the first act.
After the break, a catharsis occurs and Eterno arrives, in which Carlos Rodriguez, using the symphonic work in five acts composed by Vidal, condenses all his knowledge of flamenco art and deconstructs it, investigating the form, approaching the painter's absolute through universal concepts such as death or destiny and others more typical of pictorial art such as color and the brush.
“As a dancer and choreographer, sometimes I just can't find the right words to express how I feel. I can only express it by dancing,” said Carlos Rodriquez, who tries to reflect what the dancers express with Picasso's paintings through choreography and dance, daring to break the rules of traditional dance performances. Because for him, as Picasso, every act of creation begins with an act of destruction.
“After 30 years as a dancer and a prolific career as a choreographer, the urge to explore the work of Pablo Ruiz Picasso, a symbolic and world-class cultural artist, is the cornerstone of my works. Admiring his paintings and reading his poems led me to explore the nature of silence with the refined language of Spanish dance and flamenco.”
Rodriguez has managed to bring together a cast of great figures of Spanish and contemporary dance to compose a unique and unrepeatable canvas.
Rodriguez started his dance career with Rafael Aguilar's Ballet Teatro Espanol troupe after becoming a finalist in the Spanish National Ballet audition at the age of 13. He then danced with the Luisillo Spanish Theater Ballet, Madrid Spanish Ballet and Zambra Ballet. He was a soloist with Jose Antonio and the Ballets Espanoles and won the best dancer award at the National Choreography Competition in 1994 with Angel Rojas.
Then he founded Nuevo Ballet Espanol (NBE) in 1995 with Rojas, combining dance with contemporary disciplines to create an unconventional wind of flamenco.
Carlos Rodriguez is the artistic director of one of the most awarded promotional clips of 2017 for the “Flamenco Madrid” festival organized by Madrid Destino while he was the artistic director of the “Got Talent” Spain program for Telecinco, also working as the choreography coach of the same program.
Rodriguez was the artistic director of the 2019 UEFA Champions League final event.
