Cruceta carries its alternative flamenco to the Festival of Santander

The choreographer and flamenco dancer of Madrid Mariano Cruceta premiered this night in the International Festival of Santander (FIS) its ballet 'In Red', a spectacle of flamenco fusion that mixes the “bata de cola”, the typical flamenco dress with trail, and the “zapateados”, the rhythm created by the steps of the dancer along the music, with the street language of the break-dance to obtain a strange total of a new alternative flamenco.

'In Red' elapses in the unconscious of someone that dreams and thus is explained in the first scene, where the sleepy one appears in a dark setting and demonstrates his musings.

The last creator’s idea, who started his career in the tablaos, typical bars for flamenco performances, and formed his own company six years ago, was first to be an alternative theatre until the interest of the FIS made Cruceta redefine the format, although the result continues being very near what can be found in alternative locations.

The dancer Lola Greco, who in some scenes of “In red” is the protagonist with her “bata de cola”, is the guest artist of this spectacle, in which Cruceta talks of his search of a different and own language of the generations of artists that have preceded him.

On this quest, flamenco singers like José Jiménez 'The Sandwich' (“El Bocadillo”) and his players Carolina Planté (guitar), Bob Benson (bass and percussion) and Israel Jiménez (percussionist) accompany the spectacle in order to preserve the flamenco tradition.
In the remainder you can hear flamenco music, engraved music and also electronic music for a spectacle in which could not lack the new technologies.

Thus, Cruceta dances while its own image is being projected on a screen in one of the moments of this performance that finalizes with the literally naked artist in front of his public before some powerful lights illuminate the setting.

Before tomorrow the curtain of this 55th edition falls, the FIS will close its cycle of dance with 'In Red' with the Royal Philarmonic of London under the baton of Charles Dutoit.

"The Golden Century" reborn in Madrid

Today, the sample "Madrid of the Golden Century" was inaugurated in the Spanish capital because of the imminent premiere of the movie "Alatriste", based on the personage created by the writer Arturo Pérez-Reverts. The exposition travels through the settings represented in the movie, those of the capital of the empire during the 17th century, in which authors like Gongora, Quevedo and Lope de Vega lived. It will remain open until October 21, in the House of the Bakery of the main square.


The photos of the movie –that premiers in Spain this Friday– were treated digitally so that in the exposition appear pictures of the 19th century. Furthermore, you can read poems of some of the most representative authors of the period and explanations of symbolic places of Madrid of this era, like the Plaza of the Barefoot, the main square or the Park of the Retreat.


Augustine Díaz Yanes, the director of the movie (the more expensive of the Spanish history of movies: it cost some 24 million euros), and some of the protagonist actors like Eduardo Noriega, Unax Ugalde, Eduard Fernández and Elena Amaya attended to the presentation. The great absent was Viggo Mortensen, the American-Argentine who interprets the hero as the centre of the history, as its first protagonist in Spanish tongue.

Tapas tour in the streets of Salamanca!

Experience the Spanish culture and its typical tapas!


Mester students enjoy
the diversity of the Spanish dishes every week and have the opportunity to
taste delicious tapas of meat, vegetables, tortilla and much more typical
delicatessen of Spain.

Touring through some of the best known bars in
Salamanca, they easily make international friends in a Spanish atmosphere.

Reflected secrets

The Prado museum in Madrid unfolds what some of its best opus withhold

From 21st of July until 5th of november 2006, the Prado museum in Madrid
will expose sixteen paintings with its correspondent infrared pictures
directed by Gabriele Finaldi and Carmen Garrido.

Certain paintings of the collection of the XV and XVI century, which the
Prado museum treasures, existe of more than only the superficial facade you
can only see with the human eye. In their paintings, talented and famous
artists like Rafael, El Bosco, Sandro Botticelli, Hans Memling, Jan
Gossaert, Mabuse and Pedro Berruguete build in certain artistic treasures,
which are hidden underneath their beautiful facades. Thanks to the ³occult
writing² and the colaborating project with the laboratory of optic
metrology the public is now able to explore some of those subjacent
pictures.

Even though the infrared had already been used during the seventeens, they
just started to use this technology for studies a few years ago. This
offers new ways of exploring antique paintings and its secrets, which had
been hidden for the human eyes for ages.


Birgit Vennemann