A new art festival in Helsinki – Helsinki Flamenco Bienal announces its program
Helsinki Flamenco Bienal is a new high-level art festival where world stars of flamenco meet new generation artists.
The artist group Compañía Kaari & Roni Martin is implementing and curating a new international art festival in Helsinki, with a program that is a mix of contemporary flamenco, living legends and young artists. The festival, which will be held at the Dance House from 22 to 26 April 2025, will show what flamenco is in this time and how its different genres intertwine different trends in tradition and contemporary art.
– The first Helsinki Flamenco Biennial looks at flamenco through its multi-generational history to the present day: how the art form, born from the fusion of different Andalusian cultures and enriched by the mental landscape of the avant-garde artists of the 1930s, has survived dictatorship, persecution and the stranglehold of capitalism as a distinctive, raw and ever-changing art form, says Kaari Martin, artistic director of Compañía Kaari & Roni Martin.
Grounded in History, Focused on the Present
Spanish dancer-choreographer Israel Galván is a leading avant-garde figure and world star of flamenco, whose works question and break all possible boundaries of flamenco. He is also a technical virtuoso who dares to delve deeply into irony and carnivalism, a level of expression never seen before in Spanish flamenco. In his work La Edad de Oro (The Golden Age), Galván combines tradition and contemporary flamenco expression in an exceptional way, with sophistication and intimacy.
Living flamenco legend Carmen Linares, recent Premio Nacional de Danza winner Rafaela Carrasco, flamenco piano master Pablo Suárez, and Compañía Kaari & Roni Martin meet in the room of Spain's national poet Federico García Lorca, outside whose walls the world is driven to madness. In ¡LORCA!, we hear Lorca's 1931 flamenco poems, interpreted by Linares and newly arranged by Roni Martin, whose roots are deep in the Romani, Jewish and Arab cultures of Andalusia. It took only five years between the recording of these poems and Lorca's murder and Picasso's Guernica.
The work Aprés vous, madame by Paula Comitre, a dancer representing the younger generation of the Helsinki Flamenco Biennial, is based on the idea of the profound influence of culture on human identity and is at the same time a tribute to the dancer La Argentina, who was influential in the 20s and 30s. The music is by French concert pianist and contemporary composer Orlando Bass, who has created a completely new organic way of accompanying flamenco dance.
The festival program also features Compañía Kaari & Roni Martin's punk-flamenco piece KILL Carmen, in which the stereotype of Carmen is slapped with Tarantino-like intensity. The work, which draws on the feeling of being outsider in the original novel by French Prosper Merimée, returns to the Pannuhalli stage ten years after its premiere, having toured in different countries, arousing admiration and anger.
In addition, the Helsinki Flamenco Bienal offers a rare opportunity to experience a piece called Screaming Duende by Israel Galván and the Screaming Men’s Choir. In this performance, flamenco world star Galván joins forces with the internationally acclaimed choir from Oulu, embodying the spirit of García Lorca's concept of duende. The duo's previous collaboration, Carmen Opera, was the main performance of the Seville Flamenco Biennale at the Teatro de la Maestranza in October 2024. The choir is conducted by Petri Sirviö.
The festival also offers a unique opportunity to meet Carmen Linares in a lecture and an intimate recital.
Each evening of the festival concludes at the Sauna Club, a lively gathering where attendees can reflect on the day’s performances while savoring Spanish delicacies. The club features music and dance performed by festival artists, who embrace flamenco’s tradition of improvisation in a vibrant, cross-artistic spirit.
In addition to its main performances, the festival offers a rich array of activities, including flamenco master classes, panel discussions, and film screenings. The full program will be announced closer to the festival date.