MOjÁcar flamenco
Nana Del Caballo Grande
Ancient - Immediate - Passionate
Quien Dira
Madre Padre Duet
About Nana Del Caballo Grande
This piece was inspired by Carlos Saura and Antonio Gades' film, Bodas de Sangre. The play within the film opens with a mother singing a lullaby, Nana Del Caballo Grande, to an empty cradle. We decided to dramatize this surreal poem, approaching each verse, pivotal moments in the story.
This is how we saw each of the four verses:
Arrival: A young family enters, the father leading a horse, the mother carrying their infant child. We see the love they share and their intense love for their child.
Seduction: The sound of the river is seductive, lulling the family into a sense of calm and well-being. Behind that calm lies a growing sense of danger.
Struggle: As Night falls, the gathering shadows frighten the child. In comforting her child, the mother gets swept up in her child's terror. Soon, she is cut off from her husband and from reality. The husband reaches out to mother and child, struggling to avoid being swept away himself.
Transformation: The horse pulls the family from the rush of swirling water. He is completely exhausted, but the family is safe. The experience leaves the child marked for life.
about the dance
Creating the dance sequences for Nana del Caballo Grande was a powerful choreographic experience that included much time in the studio theater ARC Pasadena. Along with creating unique, beautiful, and unusual dance motifs through dance practice, a new artistic tool was the rendering of over twenty drawn sketches of settings and movement patterns for a group of seven modern dancers. The sketches revealed and cemented the group movement on stage throughout the piece.
Separately came the creation of three lead soloists - Padre, Madre, and Caballo - all three dancers encompassing flamenco and modern dance attributes in movement. Pulling these varying moments together gave us the inlet we needed to tell the new story - providing tension, love, sorrow and power aside beauty and lyricism throughout the piece.
Flamenco theatrical dance embraces new movement, fusing in amounts of freedom by including the incorporation of other styles of dance. For this new work, the lyricism of modern dance, and the bold sharpness of flamenco collided to tell a new and relevant work exploring the nature of love and courage, sorrow and joy.
about the MUSIC
In writing the music for Nana Del Caballo Grande, the goal was to create and populate a world that reflects the emotional state of the small family as they confront the world that surrounds them.
These musical excerpts from the piece reveal their journey.
Arrival: This is built on a version of the lullaby Madre sings to her child.
Water Music: This section captures both the beauty and the menace of dark water that threatens to envelop mother and child.
Mad Scene: As Madre struggles with her fears, her pleas to the world to help her child become increasingly frantic.
Fight Scene: Padre, Caballo and Madre struggle against the darkness.
Transformation: In this final section, Madre is moved to care for Padre and Caballo.
Nana Del CabAllo
Grande
Federico Garcia
Lorca
Nana, niño, nana
del caballo grande
que no quiso el agua.
El agua era negra
dentro de las ramas.
Cuando llega al puente
se detiene y canta.
Quién dirá, mi niño,
lo que tiene el agua,
con su larga cola
por su verde sala?
Duermete, clavel,
que el caballo no quiere beber.
Duermete, rosal,
que el caballo se pone a llorar.
Dream, child, dream
Of the great horse
That did not want the water.
The water was black within the branches
When it arrives at the bridge
it stops and sings.
Who will say to my child
Which has the water, with its long tail,
by its green wings
Ea, ea.
Go to sleep, carnation
The horse does not want to drink
Go to sleep, rosebush
The horse begins to cry.
ABOUT THE Premiere
Nana Del Caballo Grande premiered in 2016 at ARC Pasadena in Pasadena, California.
Madre
Padre
Noche
Caballo
Las Sirenas
Lighting
Set Design
Photography
Laura Villa
Albertossy Espinoza
Masha Balovlenkov
Katerina Tomás
Angelina Prendergast
Julia Murphy
Olivia Mia Orozco
Alyssa Thompson
Beatriz Vasquez
Livia Howard-Yashar
Samantha Whidby
Jami Ferreira
Efrain Valenzuela