Traditional genres, flamenco dance and music have been constantly renewed throughout the 20th century - challenging their codes and the folklore image clinging to them to reinvent themselves in the present. A figure of this renewal, Olga Pericet embodies the specificity of this dance in which the body is all at once percussion and form, surface and depth, abstraction and imaginary profusion. In her work, the construction of suspended moments, where the silhouette dreams and unfolds, alternates with sudden quickenings of pace, explosions of colours and rhythms that simply shake space. For her performance at the CND, she proposes two facets of her style: the first is a “dreamlike” mix, taken from her latest creation, in which the body passes through layers of images linked to female representations. In turn a flower woman, a child woman, sporty, joyful, wearing high heels, she draws upon Spanish cultural and dress codes to project this choreography of superimposed transformations and states. Interacting with the public and the music, she offers a moment of spontaneous and humorous sharing. In a more intimate atmosphere, the second work establishes a dialogue with the soul of the great dancer Carmen Amaya, whose sober style and rhythmic freedom revolutionised the art of flamenco: “a volcano lit by superb lightning flashes of Spanish music”, Charlie Chaplin said of her. Seeking, not to imitate her, but to conjure up her ghosts, Olga Pericet allows “the memory of this infinite body to take seed” and travels “the invisible path of her silences”. 

Source: programme of the CND

Trained by some of the leading figures of modern flamenco, Olga Pericet has developed a unique approach to this dance form bursting with contained energy: a clever mixture of tradition and formal inventiveness combining bolero, Spanish classical dance and contemporary trends. The innovative gestural glossary she has forged is based on a balance between subtle geometry and rhythmic explosiveness.  

In her works such as Rosa Metal Ceniza and De una Pieza, the flamenco rhythms are impacted by heterogeneous visual or cultural influences that work towards the renewal of this discipline.

Source: programme of the CND

Since 2001, the National Center for Dance (CND) has been making recordings of its shows and educational programming and has created resources from these filmed performances (interviews, danced conferences, meetings with artists, demonstrations, major lessons, symposia specialized, thematic arrangements, etc.).