Ballet Hispánico - CARMEN.maquia
Ballet Hispánico are headlining this years Let’s Dance International Frontiers festival in Leicester with their CARMEN.maquia…
Ballet Hispánico in “CARMEN.maquia”. © Marius Fiskum.
Ballet Hispánico
CARMEN.maquia
★★★✰✰
Leicester, The Curve
16 May 2025
www.ballethispanico.org
www.curveonline.co.uk
LDIF / Serendipity
Ballet Hispánico are this year’s headliners at Let’s Dance International Frontiers (LDIF), centred in Leicester’s comfortable Curve theatre, and the New York-based company certainly has personality and swagger in abundance. If you are quick you can catch the second and last performance tonight - 17 May 2025.
They have brought Gustavo Ramírez Sansano’s version of Carmen — titled CARMEN.maquia — in a clever-clever play on words that references Picasso and bulls. While the title may not be particularly intuitive, it hints at a different dance take on the well-known opera, one that rather shuns dramatic and historical details in favour of raw emotion and the force of nature that is Carmen. So, there is no synopsis in the programme, and only four named roles (Carmen, Don José, Micaëla and Escamillo). Other characters are semi-discernible, and while the adaptable all-white concertina box set (Luis Crespo) and nearly all-white costumes (David Delfin) look modern and artful, they don’t effectively convey the Seville-based story that begins in a tobacco factory and involves soldiers, smugglers and bullfighters etc.
From Valencia, Sansano brings an interesting modern Spanish take to the movement that “…fuses contemporary dance with nods to the Spanish paso doble, flamenco, and the movement of the Latin American Diaspora.” I have mixed feelings about the choreography, which, at its worst, seemed to portray the men of the company with persistent angsty shakes, undermining the Jirí Kylián/Nacho Duato (whoo-hoo!) inspired aesthetic. Five minutes in, I jotted down, “Do all the men in this company have ADHD?” However, things improve significantly with the introduction of the cigarette girls, who embody a real gobby Spanish attitude (often expressed through shrieks and contemptuous shouts) accompanied by terrific arm gestures. The various duets for the leads also move away from the awkward staccato shakes of uncertainty towards a smoother, more engaging style that, at its best, can truly draw you in and sweep you along.
Carmen, clad in black rather than white, was well realised by Amanda del Valle — it’s her show, and boy, do we all know it — bravo to her. Kudos also to Amanda Ostuni for her unshowy and heartbreaking portrayal of Micaëla’s forever doomed love for Don José. José was danced by Amir J. Baldwin, a fine mover and dependable partner, though, sadly, he came across as a bit colourless rather than wildly, wildly swept off his feet. You certainly understood Carmen’s attraction to Omar Rivéra’s Escamillo — full of the fizz and brio you expect from a showy Toreador. Rivéra certainly deserved a more impressive costume than the show’s standard white kit.
In the final moments of Carmen, José stabs her, which seemed rather underplayed in this production — so much so that I missed it, if not all the remorse that immediately follows. As the curtain came down, an enthralled audience stood up, caught by the emotion of one of the great theatrical plots, all set to cracking music. Even if I wasn’t so caught up myself, I appreciated the feisty attitude of the dancers and would love to see them in other repertoire. It’s notable that when they performed at the Edinburgh Festival seven years ago, they presented this Carmen alongside a short work by the internationally respected Annabelle Lopez Ochoa (Linea Recta in a great video), and I think it would have been nice to have that wider showcase in Leicester as well.