Flamenco Festival, Liñan/Ruiz Review

Flamenco Festival 2025 continued at Sadler’s Wells with two contrasting shows from Compañías Manuel Liñan and Mercedes Ruiz

Compañía Manuel Liñan, Muerta de Amor 3*

London first met flamenco dancer Manuel Liñan in 2022, when he brought his all-conquering show ¡VIVA! to the Flamenco Festival. The concept was audacious, yet straightforward: a group of excellent male dancers, ‘bailaores’, choosing to defy the macho aspects of flamenco and instead exploring their feminine side by performing as women, ‘batas de cola’, flounces and ‘peinetas’ very much included.

Muerta de Amor, which Compañía Manuel Liñan brought to the 2025 Flamenco Festival, is something else entirely: an episodic, explicit exploration of homoerotic love and desire.

Flamenco Festival, Compañía Manuel Liñan, Muerta de Amor. Photo: marcosGpunto

On a deep pink set Liñan led six black-clad bailaores, two singers and three musicians through a near two-hour show that ranged from moments of great tenderness to surreal sequences, yearning sprinkled with humour, the eternal search for human connection spelt out in gigantic letters on the backcloth: ‘anyone, as long as he loves me’.

Liñan is an extraordinary dancer, skilful, feisty, his machine-gun zapateado faster than you can comprehend, his entire body possessed by his art; he is generous, too, giving each company member a chance to shine in individual solos.

José Ángel Capel performed a stunningly light flowing ballet sequence; Miguel Herédia, fluttering gauzy skirt over his pants, abandoned himself to a solo where the feminine predominated; Alberto Sellés danced a glorious duet of playful seduction with Liñan, roping him in with a pink sash.

Guest artist Mara Rey prowled the stage at intervals, blonde mane flowing wildly, singing with devastating power. She was well matched by company singer Juan de la María.

Compelling as the dance sequences were, and however rousing the finale, structurally this was a bit of a mess: a rambling show, with too much dead air. It would benefit from judicious cuts and perhaps a measure of reframing.

Compañía Mercedes Ruiz, Romancero del Baile Flamenco 4*

By contrast, Mercedes Ruiz’s Romancero del Baile Flamenco is a tightly structured show, that draws a path along various flamenco styles, among them sevillanas, seguiriyas and bulerias.

One of the most prominent contemporary flamenco dancers, and a Flamenco Festival regular, Mercedes Ruiz is joined by dancer and choreographer José Maldonado who, incidentally, contributed choreography for Muerta de Amor.

Mercedes Ruiz and José Maldonado in Romancero del Baile Flamenco. Photo c/o Flamenco Festival

Accompanied by the ‘cante jondo’ of veteran David Lagos and the guitar of Santiago Lara, with vocals and clapping from Los Mellis, Ruiz and Maldonado alternated solos and duets, the dialogue with their musicians always present.

Ruiz is a beautiful dancer, her elegant body with flexible waist, wing-like arms and eloquent feet moving with extraordinary musicality. Throughout the unbroken 80-minute show, costume changes pointed up each style – a sumptuous ‘bata de cola’, an outsize ‘manton’, a simple long skirt topped by a bolero jacket.

Maldonado’s dancing ranged from vigorous, with forceful zapateado, spinning triple pirouettes with total ease, to filigree-delicacy. There was mutual chemistry and not a little humour in their performances.

With its austere black and white palette, broken only by Ruiz’s golden fringed costume for the sevillanas sequence and a red fan, there is something spiritual about Romancero, a sense of authentic flamenco straight from its cradle in Jerez (except for Barcelona-born Maldonado, all performers hail from the southern Andalucia town of Jerez).

However, and for all that Tatiana Ruíz’s clever and atmospheric lighting contributed to populating the space, I couldn’t help but feel that the whole thing was a little lost on Sadler’s Wells huge stage and would be more suited to the intimate atmosphere of a tablao.

That said, Romancero del Baile Flamenco was still an intense, polished and highly professional show, and thoroughly enjoyable.

(Banner Image: Mercedes Ruiz and José Maldonado in Romancero del Baile Flamenco. Photo c/o Flamenco Festival)

Flamenco Festival continues in a number of venues until 8th June 2025. Details here

Sadler’s Wells information and tickets here