When Hopkins Center programming director Margaret Lawrence first saw flamenco dancer Israel Galván perform at a festival in Montreal, she was enthralled by his mastery of movement. Lawrence immediately knew that she wanted to bring him to Dartmouth, especially to perform his popular solo piece, “La Edad de Oro,” onstage at the Hop.
“[Galván] is forging his own path in flamenco and pushing the envelope so far, and he is creatively quite daring,” Lawrence said. “He is a brilliant mover, doing these percussive steps and incredible spins that we associate with flamenco dancers, but is distinctly modern about it.”
Hop audiences will experience Galván’s blending of traditional flamenco and modernist experimentation when he performs this evening and Thursday at Moore Theater.
Galván has performed “La Edad de Oro” internationally over 200 times since he choreographed the piece in 2005. Yet Galván described the piece as evolving with each production.
“It is like a house that you’re changing some elements of the decor, some furniture,” Galván said in an email. “It is my lab where I experiment and prove things, the original atmosphere of the work always remains.”
In the piece, Galván attempts to pay tribute to three essential elements of flamenco — song, guitar and dance — while experimenting. The title of the piece refers to the golden age of flamenco, the mid-19th to early 20th centuries, when aspects of flamenco performance and culture flourished. It also invokes Luis Buñuel’s surrealist film, “L’Age d’Or” (1930).
“I face flamenco face to face and can dance freely,” Galván said. “I visit the different styles of flamenco, presented in a very naked way, creating a connection between the three people who are on stage. And for me it is a way to say that every artist has their own golden age.”
The staging for “La Edad de Oro” is simple: no set, black costumes and just three performers. There are moments without accompaniment that highlight the percussive power and precision of Galván’s footwork. Other portions feature Galván dancing to music performed by two virtuosic brothers, singer David Lagos and guitarist Alfredo Lagos.
Although Galván typically performs alone, which he attributed to his shyness, he said that he has enjoyed performing with other dancers in “La Edad de Oro.” The minimalist set is intentional so viewers focus on his movements.
Born to two performing flamenco dancers in Seville, Spain, a haven for flamenco, Galván originally hoped to be a soccer player. In his late teens, however, he had a change of heart and began intensely training and performing. He choreographed his first solo piece in 1998 at the age of 25.
Galván said he finds inspiration for his dances in all aspects of life, so long as he looks.
“All that moves, and that which does not move; dolls, lights, animals, movies — there is dance in all these things, also in the absence of movement,” he said. “I absorb all that and filter it through flamenco, which is my instrument, my form of expression.”
Galván most recently performed the American debut of his absurdist piece, “La Curva,” at the Flamenco Festival in New York City that ended March 24. The show received positive reviews in The Guardian, The New Yorker and The New York Times, with reporters describing Galván as a challenging, experimental dancer looking to shake up the established flamenco tradition.
“Each work I’ve done has changed my body a little and how I dance,” Galván said. “They are like fingerprints left on my body. I cannot dance the same way as before.”
Galván is currently collaborating with Akram Khan, a classical Indian dancer in the kathak style. Galván said he is trying to cultivate a conversation between kathak and flamenco for a future performance.
Spanish professor Paloma Asensio invited Galván to visit her advanced Spanish class as a person with “a certain cultural background, a certain accent and very interesting things to say about his life.” Due to a recent injury, however, Galván had to cancel events outside his Hop performance, including a lunch with La Casa members.
Asensio lauded the Hop’s outreach to professors and attempts to bring visiting artists into the classrooms across disciplines.
