Press Release: Flamenco meets hip hop - TITANIUM by Rojas & Rodríguez at The Peacock, 5-23 May

[Jan McNulty]

Rojas and Rodríguez
Titanium
The Peacock
Tuesday 5 – Saturday 23 May 
Tues – Sat at 7.30pm / Sat matinee at 2.30pm / Sun at 2pm / Sun 17 at 2pm and 6pm
Tickets: £15 - £38
Ticket Office: 0844 412 4322 or www.sadlerswells.com  

VIDEO TRAILER

“A true and excellently crafted exercise in fusing the forms and styles of today” – El País 

Flamenco duo Ángel Rojas and Carlos Rodríguez present the UK premiere of an unprecedented fusion between flamenco and street dance at The Peacock on Tuesday 5 - Saturday 23 May. Titanium sees a troop of 13 men take to the stage, dancers and musicians, fusing the rich dance heritage of flamenco with the rawness of hip hop and break dance culture. The show has won a National Dance Award in Spain and received high praise in a tour across Europe. 

Titanium features a multi-talented dance cast of three flamenco dancers, three hip hop dancers and three break dancers including Elihú Vázquez. Elihú is the nine-fold winner of the b-boy championship of Andalucía, and was part of Spain’s winning team in Battle of the Year 2005, the most important annual international b-boy competition. The dancers are accompanied by a live band of four, mixing flamenco with hip hop beats.

This is Rojas and Rodríguez’s most ambitious production to date and aims to offer audiences a new perspective on the commonality between the cultures of flamenco and break dancing. Both styles share a history of improvised movement, dance battles, live music and communality. The show therefore acts as a homage to two vibrant and historically rich dance traditions both born and lived in the streets. 

Rojas and Rodríguez, co-founders and directors of the Nuevo Ballet Español, have in the last two decades developed a reputation for creating pioneering flamenco work infused with contemporary disciplines and different cultural influences. Between them they have trained and developed under great flamenco masters such as José Granero, Luisillo, Rafael Aguilar and José Antonio Ruiz. In 1994 Rojas and Rodríguez jointly won the outstanding male dancer award in Spain’s National Choreography Competition. Both artists featured in the Gala Flamenca of this year’s London Flamenco Festival at Sadler’s Wells, Rojas as director and Rodriguez as performer. 

Ángel Rojas said: “Both of us have had the honour of bringing work to the London Flamenco Festival at Sadler’s Wells in the past. But we are delighted to be presenting a completely new and different project to the UK audience, maintaining our flamenco roots, but also challenging the expectations of the kind of work flamenco artists can or should perform and illustrating that flamenco is an avant-garde art form.”

Carlos Rodríguez said: “Both flamenco and urban dance were born in the streets as a form of raw self-expression and community; but both are also highly stylised and technically complex art forms. Flamenco is a tradition that is constantly evolving, and is enriched by mixing with other disciplines; the synergies that these disciplines create together have the power to awaken the excitement of our souls.” 

Click here to see the video trailer of Titanium