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<\/a>Israel Galv\u00e1n in "Lo Real"<\/p><\/div>\n
The most indelible dance production of the year, for this writer, was the world premiere of Lo Real\/Le R\u00e9el\/The Real<\/em>. Conceived by the flamenco dancer-choreographer Israel Galv\u00e1n, and seen December 22 at Madrid\u2019s prestigious Teatro Real, Lo Rea<\/em>l\u2019s subject is the Nazi\u2019s genocide of the Roman and Sinti people (otherwise known as the gypsies). This intermission-less, two hour and ten minute production is nothing but ambitious. But in the hands of the 39-year-old Galv\u00e1n, Lo Real<\/em> neither traffics in sentimentalism nor graphic violence. Instead the work reads like a metaphysical inquiry, an exploration into the fundamental nature of being in the world.<\/p>\n Consider this scene. Galv\u00e1n hammers an old upright piano apart with his sputtering footwork. In doing so, he destroys the harmonic integrity of the instrument. When he forces the piano apart, we hear its strings shrieking as they stretch. We see Galv\u00e1n in a deep lunge with his muscular arms working to push the battered object to its breaking point. But the piano doesn\u2019t dissemble. Instead its strings, like Galv\u00e1n\u2019s wiry body, produce a shrill, taut dissonance, one that is awe-inspiring in its intensity. At this moment, the image of the persecuted gypsy becomes real: Galv\u00e1n, stripped of his shirt, dances while caught in a barbed wire fence. His angular, contorted gestures and his sharp, hard footwork eviscerate him as they reveal the unique quality of his dancing, which bends the tradition of the Seville school of flamenco beyond recognition.<\/p>\n