Ballet Flamenco de Andalucia, Pineda Review 4*
Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía thrilled Sadler’s Wells with Pineda, telling the story of a community’s struggle against despotism
Any doubts that flamenco could go beyond mere spectacle and sustain a compelling narrative were dispelled long ago when the great dancer and choreographer Antonio Gades adapted Garcia Lorca’s play Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding) to a full length ballet.
Subsequently filmed by Carlos Saura, the flamenco ballet would garner international acclaim and become the benchmark by which similar projects would be judged.
Undaunted, Patrica Guerrero, artistic director of Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía, one the guest companies in the 2025 London Flamenco Festival, has now created her own flamenco narrative work, Pineda, also based on a Garcia Lorca play, Mariana Pineda.
And if Bodas de Sangre is a hard work to match, Pineda stands its ground with flair and assurance.
Set in 19th century Granada at a time of great turbulence, when people were conspiring to overthrow absolutism and restore liberty, it centres on the figure of Mariana Pineda, danced by Patricia Guerrero, herself Granada-born. Pineda wants to embroider the key words you hear throughout the ballet – ‘freedom, law, equality’ – on a flag. She is in love with the liberal leader Captain Pedro de Sotomayor (Eduardo Leal).
Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía, Pineda, Image: Marcos Medina
The villain is Pedrosa, the city mayor, who’s determined to vanquish the conspirators and execute them all. Danced with tremendous intent by guest artist Alfonso Losa, Pedrosa totally commands the stage with dancing where every gesture, every step tells a story. It’s an extraordinarily powerful, scene-stealing performance.
It pays to read the synopsis beforehand, as the narrative assumes prior knowledge and Alberto Conejero’s fluent dramaturgy cleverly elides much of the detail which would clutter the flow of the story.
The specially composed musical score (Agustín Diassera, Dani de Morón and Sergio ‘El Colorao’) is eloquently performed by two guitarists (Jesús Rodríguez and José Luis Medina) and a percussionist (David Chupete) sitting on the front row of the stalls; two offstage singers (Amparo Lagares and Manuel de Gines) provide commentary on the action, complemented by an invisible choir.
Guerrero, who choreographed and directed Pineda, created a good balance between crowd scenes and intimate duets. The central battle of Albayzín, which results in the defeat of the liberals, is particularly thrilling: the fierce opponents criss-crossing the smoky stage ever more fiercely, swinging rags as weapons, the zapateado rising to a furious pitch.
Patricia Guerrero’s dancing belies her gentle, blonde looks: she can be loving and passionate in her brief duets with Pedro, but dauntingly determined in her extended final confrontation with Pedrosa – an edge of your seat foot-stomping duet (or is it a duel?) between two exceptional dancers, whose performances feed of each other in a mutual challenge to go further and further.
There’s no happy ending, of course; Pineda spends her final hour before execution in a convent, surrounded by black clad nuns, hovering omens of the inevitable.
At a tight 90-minutes with no interval, Pineda grabs the audience early on and never lets go. It’s a very good show, offering something different in a festival that can be a little samey.
© Teresa Guerreiro
(Banner image credit: Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía, Pineda, Image: Marcos Medina)
Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía, Pineda is at Sadler’s Wells 6 & 7 June 2025. Info and tickets here
The Flamenco Festival continues in various venues until 8th June 2025. All info here