2009: caleidoscopio

Aargauer Zeitung

Dance in a Never-Ending Magic Garden

Flamencos en route are brilliant in their production "caleidoscopio" performed in Königsfelden. This production represents Part II of the "Dance & Art Königsfelden" trilogy.
The spectators entering the monastery church of Königsfelden at nightfall are instantly transported into a different world. Like strange pillars, Gillian White’s sculptures can be seen throughout the nave of the church, transforming themselves over the course of the evening into what looks like trees, exotic plants, or unknown shapes. A quiet and sensual atmosphere permeates the church, evoking impressions of a mysterious magic garden.
"caleidoscopio" is the name of the new production created by the dance company Flamencos en route from Baden. The title refers to the Greek phrase "seeing beautiful forms" – and that is precisely what the spectators do all evening. With her choreography, the director and founder of the dance company, Brigitta Luisa Merki, has created a caleidoscope of dialogues involving dance, space, sculpture, and music of the most beautiful and intense kind. With each step and sound a type of dynamic labyrinth composed of emotions, forces, and fantasies comes to life. To add to the effect, the lighting (by Veit Kälin) turns the nave of the church into an ever-changing landscape.
The six outstanding male and female dancers initially meet as faun-like beings and eventually seek each other out as men and women, only to start courting each other, thus revealing the fascinating facets of their mutually inspiring encounters. The interplay of expressive and complex movements combines elements of flamenco with those of contemporary dance and creates a strong, wonderfully dense, and far-resonating dialogue between interior and exterior impulses. Nieves Díaz’ and Karima Nayt’s expressive singing fills the locale with ardent, poetic landscapes and alternately seems to inspire and comment on the dance. Together with the two guitarists, Pablo García and Juan Gomez, the percussionists Fredrik Gille and Karo Sampela add their captivating rhythm, thus driving the performance, but never interfering with or overpowering the nuances represented in the dancing and singing.
The continuous interweaving of dance, music, and locale, calm and precise, creates the kind of maelstrom-like effect the audience is unlikely to forget too soon. The choreographer, Brigitta Luisa Merki, has mastered the challenge of balancing structured form and free dynamics as well as explosive expressiveness and quiet inwardness in competent and exciting fashion. This creates an equilibrium of forces that, at times, makes the audience feel as if the nave of the church was about to start levitating and as if dance and music were to expand into infinity.
The dancers, both male and female (Carmen Iglesias, Raquel Lamadrid, Karima Nayt, Marta Roverato, Eloy Aguilar, Fran Bas, and José Merino), demonstrate a brilliant expressiveness, which can be seen again and again in their solos as well. Eloy Aguilar’s solo in particular seems to express all the forces contained in flamenco and in dance in general while reinventing them at the same time.
With their production "caleidoscopio" Brigitta Luisa Merki and her dance company have created a masterpiece. For 25 years, the dancer and choreographer – who, in 2004, was awarded the Hans-Reinhart-Ring, Switzerland’s most prestigious performing arts award – has combined the language of flamenco with various forms of art. Today she seems to have reached a particularly important and extremely impressive stage on her path ("en route") of analyzing and artistically combining diverse creative forces.

Eva Bucher, Aargauer Zeitung, 25.05.2009