Review: Compañía Rafaela Carrasco in CREAVIVA – Flamenco Festival London 2026
Jonathan Gray feels that the Compañía Rafaela Carrasco’s CREAVIVA was an anticlimax after the excitement of the opening night of Flamenco Festival London.
| Title | CREAVIVA |
| Company | Compañía Rafaela Carrasco |
| Venue | Sadler’s Wells, London |
| Date | 18 June 2026 |
| Reviewer | Jonathan Gray |
Following the excitement of the opening night of Flamenco Festival London at Sadler’s Wells on 16 June with Compañía de Danza Jesús Carmona, proceedings took a dip two days later with the arrival of the Compañía Rafaela Carrasco in CREAVIVA.
This work takes inspiration from the nine Muses of Greek mythology – Calliope (Muse of Poetry and Rhetoric), Clio (History), Erato (Love and Erotic Poetry), Euterpe (Music and Lyric Poetry), Melpomene (Tragedy), Polymnia (Sacred Hymns, Harmony and Agriculture), Thalia (Comedy and Idyllic Poetry), Terpsichore (Dance and Choral Song) and Urania (Astronomy). A programme note adds that CREAVIVA attempts to show “the reality of the creator… in a continuous state of loneliness…” as well as an “evocation of images as a prelude to the beginning of something which will eventually find an identity.”
These concepts were rather obscure in realisation because, although she does dance alone, Carrasco is often surrounded by her musicians and singers, and she connects amicably with them all during the performance. CREAVIVA doesn’t suggest to me the state of loneliness of an artist, nor could I link the dancing and singing with any discernible representation of the Muses, although, as a non-Spanish speaker, I probably missed entirely the meaning behind the words expressed in the songs and the recorded sections of spoken word.
All that was left was to concentrate on the quality of the singing and dancing. Gema Caballero and Antonio Campos sang with passion, and the guitarists Jésus Torres and José Luis Medina, and the percussionist Pablo Martín Jones, were impressive. I was also impressed by Carrasco’s stamina, as she was present on stage for almost the entire performance, even changing her costumes in full view of the audience. She is a serious and contained artist and displayed incredible clarity and precision in her footwork and in her arms, but I was surprised by how little she incorporated the use of her torso in her dancing – from the hips down she was dynamic and dexterous, from the waist up, less so.
Nevertheless, Carrasco really came into her own towards the end of the evening in a delightful solo in which she deployed the bata de cola of her dress with tremendous skill and humour. The lighter tone to this solo lifted CREAVIVA considerably, but not enough to make me enjoy it more than I did.
Jonathan Gray was editor of Dancing Times from 2008 to 2022.
He studied at The Royal Ballet School, Leicester Polytechnic, and Wimbledon School of Art where he graduated with a BA Hons in Theatre Design. He was on the Curatorial Staff of the Theatre Museum, London, from 1989 to 2005, assisting on a number of dance-related exhibitions, and helping with the recreation of original designs for a number of The Royal Ballet’s productions including Danses concertantes, Daphnis and Chloë, and The Sleeping Beauty.
Jonathan Gray has also contributed to the Financial Times and The Guardian, written programme articles for The Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet, and is co-author of the book Unleashing Britain: Theatre gets real 1955-64, published in 2005. He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
