Review: Tierra Bendita with the Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía at Flamenco Festival London 2026

The final programme of London’s Flamenco Festival on the main stage of Sadler’s Wells introduced audiences to the Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía, a company directed by dancer and choreographer Patricia Guerrero. Based in Seville, the ensemble of 14 dancers and five musicians and singers was seen on 26 June in Tierra Bendita (Blessed Land), a series of Andalusian songs and dances that lasted 90 minutes without interval. Many of the numbers were choreographed by Guerrero herself, and within each item individual dancers and musicians were given a moment to shine. Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía is a highly professional troupe, excellently dressed and lit, but coming immediately after the Gala Flamenca and Rocío Molina’s Calentamiento, it simply couldn’t compare with either in terms of excitement, passion or technical skill.

Part of the problem, I felt, was that Tierra Bendita was too obviously a “show”. Nothing wrong with a bit of showbiz, but the production was so slickly planned, directed and choreographed that it lacked spontaneity. The ensemble performed their complex routines with drilled precision – the men stamped their feet smartly, and the women swirled their bata de colas beautifully – but they did so without much individuality, and the choreographer felt the need to add jumps, pirouettes and other showy “balletic” moves that didn’t sit well on dancers presumably trained in Flamenco. Each ensemble – performed with broad smiles that were directed by the dancers largely towards the audience – was pretty, picturesque and punctuated with dramatic poses, but they were rarely stimulating.

There were, in fact, only three moments during the evening that caught my imagination. Early on, Eduardo Leal, hatted and dressed in purple and black, danced a brief “Tientos” solo in which he demonstrated an elegant breadth of movement in his arms and torso. Halfway through, Ángel Fariña and Adriana Gómez were touching and tender in their “Paseo de los Tristes” duet. At the end Guerrero herself, dressed beautifully in a rustling, flounced and embroidered red dress, recited poetry by Manuel Benítez Carrasco and then performed a “Bulería por Soleá” with poised energy, authority and excellent footwork. For me, these were the highlights in an attractive but ultimately disappointing climax to the 2026 Festival.

Jonathan Gray Guest Author

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.