Bienal de Pontevedra

Dance. Running time: 45 min.

Fóra de si (Out of your mind) is a collaboration between Nuria Sotelo and Luz Arcas as a result of the series Conexións A Casa Vella, which is premiered in this live art programme of the Pontevedra Biennial. The starting point is Luz Arcas's research on the 'jondo body': 'I have been working for some years on the cante jondo (a variety of flamenco) as an engine of internal movement and starting point for my dances. In the expressive and experimental search, formally detached from any tradition, but energetically connected with the expressions of my land, with flamenco, rites and superstitions, with the Andalusian folklore and its dances and deep-rooted songs'. 'How do you incarnate life without a body? How do you dance out of your mind?  How do you deliver the body to messages from other bodies that are no longer here? How do you make of this expressive mechanism a space for freedom, for the revolution of time and space, of personal bonds (...) Matter, hands that write or draw, mouths that speak at the service of messages from other worlds'. In this work, the choreographer and dancer Luz Arcas explores these questions as an invocation, using as material the body and voice of Nuria Sotelo, the voice and percussion of Quique Peón, and her own body.

Luz Arcas (1983, Málaga, Spain) founded the company La Phármaco in 2009. She was finalist for Best Female Dance Performer at the Max Awards in 2017 and has won The Critical Eye Award in 2015, the Best Female Dance Performer Award at the Lorca Awards in 2015, the Injuve Award in 2009 and the Málaga Crea Award in 2009. In addition, she received the National Dance Award (2024) granted by the Spanish Ministry of Culture.

As for Nuria Sotelo, she is a veterinarian, dancer and choreographer. She is also the founder and artistic director of the dance-theatre company Furia Sotelo, director of the Ourense Campus's dance centre, teacher in the movement field, worker in the social field of arts, and promoter and coordinator of A Casa Vella, a space for artistic creation and social action in rural areas.

Lastly, Quique Peón (1963, A Coruña, Spain) is a choreographer, researcher, performer and teacher in the traditional Galician music and dance field. His career has been focused on ethnographic research, with an extensive field work. He has restored hundreds of dances, music, costumes, instruments and customs, and won countless national and international awards. Since 1982 he has led the traditional music and dance group Xacarandaina in the city of A Coruña and, in 2008, he created Quique Peón Cía, a professional Galician dance company.

This programme may be subject to changes due to external circumstances, such as adverse weather conditions or force majeure.