The goat has multiple roles to play in rural Spain. There is also a venerable tradition of the animal being brought to town by itinerant gypsy performers. Crowds would gather as news spread that the “goat number” was to be staged. With musical accompaniment, a human performer instructed the compliant animal to climb steps and perform atop a precarious raised platform. To this day, “to do the goat number” is a euphemism to express that someone is about to embark on a challenging task. In this new flamenco-infused production, Luz Arcas’s Pharmakos Company (Spain) pays homage to and reimagines this popular entertainment rite.   

Mariana is the name given to the goat who accompanies the wandering gypsy, the one who provides the show, who dances and puts food on the table. Mariana is the mule used for trilling by the peasant farmer, the female ass worked to death as well as the little donkey that carries our Lord. Irrespective of the age in which we live, the female animal is invariably the workhorse. In this production, song animates and encourages the forces of production; whilst the body freely recreates the potency of the animal that allows itself to be led by the rhythm of its organs, just like in an unadorned acapella flamenco song. It is moved not by some archaic essence but instead by a pure desire to hit upon the perfect form, to embody order and eloquence. As we speak of the deep song in flamenco, there is also a deep body in dance. The deep body radiates energy, life and death. Herein lies its radical and archaic modernity. The deep body breaks into dance much in the same way as we are brought to tears, sweat or burst out laughing. The languages are impure, a hybrid as is all that is genuinely alive. A dance sculpted in stone and clay, schematic, coarse and precise much like alters, amulets or tools. A dance as abstract and symbolic as it is utilitarian and material. 

The deep body has no formal objective, it has no objective.

The deep body has a coarse primitive and problematic imaginary.

The deep body is rooted:

its roots are mobile, there is nowhere it does not reach.

It is impure, hybrid,

it feels like its life is small and this only makes it grander.

The deep body is not Apollonian,

it gives rise to ritual and catharsis.

The deep body is theatre.

The deep body is carved like a primitive sculpture,

it has a secret faith in its own potency.

The possibility of death is its ultimate attribution,

it has fear, 

which it suffers

but, first and foremost,

said fear is danced (away).      

BAILE

Luz Arcas

VOZ

Bonela Hijo

PERCUSIONES Y SINTETIZADOR

Carlos González

CORNETA

Abraham Romero

GUITARRA

Bonela Chico

PALMAS Y ZAPATEADOS

Carmen Ríos

DIRECCIÓN ARTÍSTICA, COREOGRAFÍA Y ESPACIO ESCÉNICO

Luz Arcas

ACOMPAÑAMIENTO DRAMATÚRGICO

Rafael Sánchez Mateo Paniagua

ASISTENCIA ESCÉNICA Y MUSICAL

Abraham Gragera

ASISTENCIA ARTÍSTICA Y VESTUARIO

Ernesto Artillo

ASESORA DE FLAMENCO

Charo Martín

ILUMINACIÓN

Jorge Colomer

ESPACIO SONORO

Pablo Contreras

DIRECCIÓN TÉCNICA

Cristina Bolívar

TÉCNICOS EN GIRA

José Espigares y Pablo Contreras

FOTOGRAFÍA Y VIDEO

Virginia Rota, Alejandra Amere y Jorge Colomer

DISEÑO GRÁFICO

María Peinado

PRODUCCIÓN

Alberto Núñez y Alex Foulkes

PRODUCCIÓN EJECUTIVA

Fernando Jariego

“Mariana es la decantación de un baile, la madurez de una bailarina, Mariana es un puerto conquistado.”

“En abril llega una maravilla a los Teatros del Canal de ya una veterana coreógrafa, Luz Arcas, que estrenó en la Bienal de Flamenco de Sevilla, Mariana, puro folk convertido en contemporaneidad.”