Vanesa Aibar, with Estampa, at the Ciutat Flamenco Festival
Cristalización IV: contemporary dance, light beams and crystals in a piece that fuses flamenco with visual research.
As residents of Nau Bostik, we sometimes have the privilege of attending presentations that might otherwise pass us by. On October 19, Vanesa Aibar and the collective Estampa presented Cristalización IV as part of the Ciutat Flamenco festival.
The artists
Vanesa Aibar, born in Jaén, is a dancer and creator who began in Spanish and flamenco dance but has evolved towards a contemporary dance of refined aesthetics and strong formal and investigative content. Her trajectory includes collaborations with prominent figures and works that combine choreographic rigour with thematic exploration of femininity, mythology and the fusion of languages. Her creations include Sierpe (2019), Áspid (2020) and La Reina del Metal, which won the Max 2023 award for best dance performance.
Taller Estampa is a Barcelona-based collective dedicated to experimental audiovisual research, digital technologies, artificial intelligence and image animation.
The performance
Cristalización IV is the piece resulting from the collaboration between Vanesa and Estampa: a work that fuses contemporary dance with light beams manipulated by the dancer herself using crystals, integrated into hypnotic choreography. The forty-minute piece combines a first section in the audience area with multicoloured lighting effects, followed by an audiovisual segment on stage where light, body and movement become inseparable.
The photography
I left surprised and moved by the piece. The fusion of flamenco with contemporary elements is something that has interested me for a while, and here the visual and scenic research went completely hand in hand.
I worked with the Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 at slow shutter speeds — between 1/15 and 1/30s — to try to capture the dancer’s syncopated movement and the light she herself was shaping.
