GREAT DANCE STARS GALA

The star of the Paris Opera and former director of the National Dance Company, José Carlos Martínez, has created a special program composed of pieces of different dance styles whose main protagonists are Lucía Lacarra and Sergio Bernal.

Price: 36 and 34 €. Special discounts with Youth Card and PIC card (Pamplona Iruña Card).

The Gran Gala de Estrellas de la Danza is a personal project of José Carlos Martínez that is born with a vocation of permanence and whose objective is to make visible the wide group of Spanish dancers who triumph abroad. Martinez has created a special program for this Grand Gala, composed of pieces of different styles of dance: classical, neoclassical, contemporary or Spanish.

The show features the star of Guipuzcoa Lucía Lacarra, recognized with the Benois de la Danc' and the soloists of the Paris Opera Florent Melac and Roxane Stojanov -who replaces Agnès Letestu, out due to injury-. Also participating are the outstanding figures of Spanish dance Sergio Bernal and Iratxe Ansa, National Dance Prize 2020, as well as the dancers Aleix Martínez, Aída Badía and Lucie Barthélémy.

The exquisite and varied selection of the repertoire will allow each of the stars to show off their full artistic potential, within a program carefully designed to take the spectator on a journey through the history of dance, where tradition coexists with modernity.

OSCAR-WINNING DANCER

With an extensive professional career behind her and an enviable track record that includes the Nijinsky, Benois de la Danse -considered the 'Oscar' of ballet- and National Dance Awards, Lucía Lacarra is one of the most outstanding classical prima ballerinas of her generation, whose professional career began in the Ballet of Víctor Ullate and has developed in the National Ballet of Marseille, the San Francisco Ballet or the Bayerisches Staatsballett. Lacarra combines her career as a freelance performer with the status of permanent guest at the Ballett Dortmund. At the Grand Gala of Stars of Dance, the dancer from Guipuzcoa will perform Christopher Wheeldon's After The Rain, a paso a dos in which she will be partnered by Matthew Golding, also guest principal dancer at the Ballett Dortmund.

THE CRADLE OF BALLET

From the oldest and one of the most prestigious ballet companies in the world, the Paris Opera, the soloists Florent Melac and Roxane Stojanov, who replaces the star Agnès Letestu, who is out at the last minute due to injury. At the Grand Gala of Dance Stars, the Stojanov-Melac tandem will offer two performances: a paso a dos from Cinderella, choreographed by the legendary Rudolf Nureyev, and Opus 27 Chopin, created by Melac himself.

NATIONAL DANCE AWARD 2020

"For her dimension as a performer, which makes her shine beyond her purely physical work and for the mastery with which she nourishes the body to transcend technique in a constant and versatile evolution," the jury awarded the 2020 National Dance Prize in the category of Interpretation to Iratxe Ansa. The artist from Guipuzcoa has developed her career in a multitude of international companies such as the Nederlands Dance Theater, the National Dance Company, the Lyon Opera Ballet or the Gulbenkian Ballet, among others. Now a freelancer, Ansa has proven to have a voice of her own in her project Metamorphosis, which she co-directs with Igor Bacovich. The Ansa-Bacovich tandem will offer the duo of their own creation, Entangled Echos and the piece Seda, a solo by Ansa with the live collaboration of singer María Berasarte, described as 'The Naked Voice' and whose specialty is fados and music with Iberian roots.

SPANISH DANCE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Able to tackle styles as different and distant as Spanish dance and classical language, versatility has become a hallmark of Sergio Bernal. After his successful stint with the Ballet Nacional de España -under the direction of Antonio Najarro- where he reached the category of first dancer, in 2019 he founded his own company, Sergio Bernal Ballet Español. Positano-Léonide Massine Award, Ballet 2000 and Young Talent under 30 for Forbes magazine, Sergio Bernal was nominated for the Critics' Circle National Dance Award 2019 in the United Kingdom for his interpretation of The Swan, a piece choreographed by Ricardo Cue and which he will dance at the Stars of Dance Grand Gala. He will round out his participation with Overture, a piece he created himself. 

AN INSPIRING COMPANY

 Forged as a dancer in the ranks of the Compañía Nacional de Danza under the direction of Maya Plisetskaya and Nacho Duato, the late choreographer Juan Carlos Santamaría is the author of Polvo eres, a production in which Aída Badía, who later joined the CND and was promoted to the category of soloist under the artistic direction of José Carlos Martínez, stood out. She will be partnered by Aleix Mañé, soloist of the CND and also choreographer of Exilio, a piece with which the tandem will complete their performance at the Gran Gala de Estrellas de la Danza.
With whom they coincided in the studios of the CND was Lucie Barthélémy, also a soloist of the company at the time of José Carlos Martínez. Barthélémy is currently a principal in the productions of the former étoile de l'Opéra de Paris Karl Paquette, as is her partner, Iván Delgado del Río. Together they will open the show with Mon premier Lac du Cygnes, by Fabrice Bourgeois.
In the second part, Barthélémy will perform the solo Bailándole al viento and Delgado, Las coles, both choreographies by the latter.

ARTISTIC FILE

Artistic Director: José Carlos Martínez.

Guest artists: Iratxe Ansa and Igor Bacovich : Aída Badía and Aleix Mañé : Lucie Barthélémy and Iván Delgado del Río : Sergio Bernal : Lucía Lacarra and Matthew Golding : Roxane Stojanov and Florent Melac : María Berasarte (singer)

THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

José Carlos Martínez began his dance studies with Pilar Molina. He completed his training at the Centre International de Danse Rosella Hightower (1984-1987). During her last year as a student, she obtained the Prix de Lausanne, which opened the doors of the Paris Opera.

In 1988, Rudolf Nureyev personally chose him to be a member of the Corps de Ballet of the Paris Opera, where he progressively rose through the ranks: soloist dancer in 1990 and prima ballerina in 1992.

In an impasse towards stardom, Martinez won the gold medal at the International Ballet Competition in Varna (Bulgaria), being to date the only Spanish dancer to have won it.

In 1997, he was promoted to the rank of star of the Paris Opera, the highest category in the French organization chart. He bid farewell to the stage in 2011.

He has worked with most of the great choreographers of the late twentieth century such as Maurice Béjart, Roland Petit, William Forsythe, Pina Bausch, Mats Ek, Jiří Kylián, John Neumeier, among others. He debuted as a choreographer with short pieces such as Mi Favorita ( 2002), Delibes Suite (2003), Scaramouche and Paréntesis (2005), Soli-Ter and Mi Favoritita (2006), El olor de la ausencia ( 2007).

Commissioned by the Paris Opera Ballet, he created his first full evening choreography, Les enfants du paradis ( 2008), which won him the Benois de la Danse in Moscow. He created Ouvertureen deux mouvements (2009) and Marco Polo, the Last Mission (2010) for the Shanghai Ballet. From 2011 to 2019, he has been the director of the Spanish National Dance Company (CND), for which he has created pieces such as Sonatas ( 2012) and his versions of great works of the classical repertoire such as Don Quixote (2015), The Nutcracker (2018), Suite de Raymonda and Giselle. Paso a dos. Outside the CND he has created Resonnance (2014), for the Boston Ballet.

He is currently in the process of creating his versions of The Corsair for the Rome Opera Ballet and the Ljubljana Ballet, and of Giselle for the Zagreb Opera Ballet. Also on his agenda is the premiere of a new version of Scaramouche, in Paris, scheduled for 2021.

In addition, Martinez has become the first Spanish choreographer invited to create for the dancers of the Vienna Opera Ballet, the pieces of the traditional New Year's Concert, which was broadcast with great success, worldwide on January 1, 2020.

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