Dances and dances, the snack, the warm-up, midday and its light, sunglasses, sun in our faces, arms up, spinning around again and again, ballroom dances, of distance ballrooms, which bring us two beings who leap and look like two insects in springtime. Joaquín Collado and Pol Jimenez tell us: ‘if you dance, your evil is frightened away’. That’s why Arrabel will appear next, with their ability to be here and now, with all the steps harboured in their feet, their dulzaina, their drum, and they’ll invite us to enter that thing that gives them such pleasure: dancing and dancing under a bright sky. And with our bodies still vibrating, we’ll let ourselves sway to the voice of Restinga, to her words and sounds that are actually bangers. And so our jota and ballroom steps will perhaps be employed for reggaeton.

Joaquín Collado. Photo: Beatriz Ortigosa

‘Those who dance chase their troubles away’ by Joaquín Collado. ‘People don’t couple dance anymore. Dancing holding hands, glued together, with no purpose other than to dance. I called Pol so we could share a dance, drawn by the pleasure and sheer delight it produces in a body that knows how to be present. It is an exercise in intimacy. That’s what it is. The eyes soften. The skin is no longer a boundary. Look, weight is the only certainty here: dancing on top of each other. That’s what this piece is. Don’t ask for more. Simplicity and looseness. A trivial gesture for serious folks. Let yourselves go, free yourself of all worries and of yourselves—that’s how those dancers go in their soft-floating state of being. Otherwise, it is a dance that has not (yet) (ever) (so far) arrived. That’s how it is. Full stop…’

Joaquín Collado grew up in Villamalea (Albacete) but lives in Barcelona. Since 2017, he has been exploring procedures to blur the boundaries of the body and dance with the aim of welcoming multiple forms of embodiment that dwell in the realms of the spatial, the monstrous and the poetic. He calls himself an unfinished artist, an undercover dancer, a mime and a skilled voice-doubler. He also coordinates a dance festival in his town and is developing an educational project with teenagers on shame and other issues. All these parallel paths enable him to imagine that artist he is becoming: with multiple gestures, on the edge between high and low, the present and the past, inside and outside, the body and chatter.

Arrabel. Photo: A.C. Arrabel

Let’s Dance It by Arrabel. For this occasion, Arrabel is suggesting that we invoke traditional festivals to dance, sing, play and have fun! To do so, they’ll perform two or three music and dance pieces from the folk culture of Castile and Madrid and then invite the respectable audience to participate by teaching them how to dance the pieces just performed, along with new ones.

Arrabel is a nonprofit music and dance cultural association which has been declared of Municipal Public Interest whose purpose is to revive, develop and spread traditional Castilian culture. Ever since it was founded in 1982, it has gathered an extensive repertoire of songs, melodies and traditional dances resulting from research, documentation and compilation, primarily from direct sources through multiple fieldwork forays. Arrabel has a phonographic archive with more than 600 tunes recorded and more than sixty dances and choreographies filmed specifically from the Community of Madrid. After being documented and studied, this heritage is spread while respecting the roots and context of each work by paying attention to the costumes, the choreographic qualities and the original music.

Photo: Restinga

Concert featuring Restinga.  Restinga is the alter ego of the Spanish-Moroccan artist Herminia Loh Moreno, who was born in Tetouan and has lived in Seville since she was a child. Also known for her facet as a DJ specialising in world dance music, in 2023 Restinga started releasing her own songs, which she herself composes, sings, records and produces in her home.

That sense of confessional bedroom pop lurks in her music, connecting with that Gen-Z spirit that talks about their fragilities and vulnerabilities, yet she also pours her vast knowledge of Arabic and Oriental music into her music, along with her ability to capture electronic injections. In 2023 she released ‘انا و ياك’ [Me and You], a debut EP in the guise of a double single, a blend of Arab samples and alternative auteur pop. Before this summer she’ll release her debut album, Free Baby, which already has confirmed dates at prestigious events like Primavera Sound, Sound Isidro and others.