www.aracaladanza.com 1

a performance of contemporary dance for boys and girls from 4 years old

Award for Best Show at FETEN 2007

Award for Best Original Music at FETEN 2007 MAX Award Best Show for Children 2008 MAX Award Best Costume Design 2008

MAX Award Best Set Design 2008

www.aracaladanza.com 2

You fly without problems. You only have to take off.

You construct your paradise. It appears at the first call.

Close your eyes and everything changes.

You paint the world and it’s already easy.

Hieronymus Bosch. Garden of Earthly Delights. 1506. (Beyond the beauty of monsters). Paradise.

www.aracaladanza.com 3

about the work

Freely inspired by the painting The Garden of

Earthly Delights, by Bosch, this new piece by

Aracaladanza seeks to offer its viewers brief

instances of joy. Pequeños Paraísos are fleeting

bits of happiness that, without any connection, incite

well-being, promise smiles and radiate peace…

A performance overflowing with light, filled with an exacting concern for

each detail. The show houses boundless creatures and answers intimate

wishes. It pays immediate attention to play and takes laughter seriously.

Pequeños Paraísos does not falter. It does not give in. And above all, it

does not tell. It enjoys the moment and delights in the instant.

It doesn’t teach. It doesn’t guide. And above all, it doesn’t indoctrinate. It

opens the imagination and attracts freedom.

A purified work, it insists on the centrality of objects and engages the

company of marionettes, transformed by their own right into the sixth

dancer.

Aimed at a family audience, the show furthermore seeks to rescue the

child that lives within us all, regards of age.

www.aracaladanza.com 4

The world reduced to a garden.

And in it, strawberries and trapeze artists,

And lanterns and balloons and flowers and…

Brilliant jewels locked in little boxes;

Tiny treasures that open to give the gift of air.

Appearing and disappearing.

Diminutive states of joy,

Absurd bits that offer happiness.

And tenderness and feeling. And laughter and amusement.

A dream Paradise for all.

Or better yet: paradises invented to the rhythm of the waltz

Or even of silence.

Delightful pieces that recall distant memories of another paradise:

That of The Garden of Earthly Delights.

Bosch inspires a mad race towards the imagination

And offers his chaos as a point of departure.

With marionettes or with balloons. With paper or with soap.

As before, everything works…

As always, everything dances…

As never before, everything glows

These are the Tiny Paradises (Pequeños Paraísos)

www.aracaladanza.com 5

synopsis

01. - The garden on the curtain and the floor dirty.

02. - A surprise: newspapers fly too.

03. - A very special rain.

04. - Five stools and I can’t sit down.

05. - Birds are acrobats too. An argument between dancers.

06. - And if you could wear a garden?

07. - Huge, but not dangerous.

08. - The strawberry of discord.

09. - Lightless in Paradise.

10. - The garbage returns.

Finale: I want to be free!

www.aracaladanza.com 6

artistic and technical crew

Idea and choreographic direction Enrique Cabrera

Choreography Aracaladanza

Performers Nadia Vigueras Moreno

Jimena Trueba

Jorge Brea Salgueiro

Raquel de la Plaza

Jonatan de Luis Mazagatos

Original music Mariano Lozano P. Ramos

Set design and costumes Elisa Sanz

Lighting Design Pedro Yagüe

Design and creation of the

marionettes

Ricardo Vergne

Advice on the marionettes El Nudo Compañía Teatral

Wardrobe seamstress Petra Porter / Angeles Martín

Graphic design and photography Oscar Cantos

Production and national tour

coordination

Arantza Izaguirre Fradua

Production and international tour

coordination

Marisa Bas Pardo

Distribution Alberto Muyo

General production and press Javier Torres Ochandiano

www.aracaladanza.com 7

about the company

Fantasy, imagination and magic. These are the essential ingredients of

the work of Aracaladanza, the contemporary dance company of Madrid

known for its serious, meticulous proposals and its consistent high quality.

The pioneer work carried in Spain by the company directed by Enrique

Cabrera has become a reference in dance both nationally and

internationally. Great Britain has shown a special interest in the

commitment Aracaladanza has made over the past 12 years of its

existence (its support for new creation; professional and artistic training;

promotion of new audiences; independent and exquisite creation and

craftsmanship; development of artistic teams). In fact, Aracaladanza has

collaborated closely with DanceEast, DancexChange and with the

Lakeside Arts Centre of the University of Nottingham.

In Spain, its pieces have won the unanimous favour of critics and the

public alike. Its productions have been awarded with such important

prizes as the Villa de Madrid Award for Best Choreography in 2005 for its

show ¡Nada…Nada! , or the repeated recognition by FETEN: Best Dance

Performance (1999), Best Soundtrack (1999) and Best Lighting Design

(1999) for Ana y el arco de colores, Best Costume Design (2001) for

Maletas, and Best Costume Design and Characterization (2005) for

¡Nada…Nada!

At the end of 2006, Aracaladanza premiered its latest production at the

Teatro de la Abadía in Madrid: Pequeños paraísos. This piece was

acclaimed the Best Revelation Show of the Comunidad de Madrid in the

Max 2007 Awards, and in FETEN 2007 it won the Awards for Best Show

www.aracaladanza.com 8

and Best Musical Composition. The piece has been booked at national

theatres as well as German, French and British theatres until, at least, the

end of 2008.

But the recognition that most interests Aracaladanza is the privilege of

fascinating an audience that is essential for both the present and future of

Spanish dance. Over the course of its history, the company has achieved

this with: 3 short pieces, 8 medium format productions, 4 shows

conceived to be performed on the streets and in non-conventional

spaces, and 5 national and international choreography commissions.

In the past four years, the company has raised the curtain on more than

600 occasions. The success of ¡Nada…. Nada!, its previous production,

also premiered at the Teatro de la Abadía, obliges the company to keep

performing this piece with which it also toured widely through Great

Britain as well as in France and Germany. And in the spring of next year,

this piece will visit the Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona, as well as the

Bank of Scotland Children’s International Festival, the Theatre Festival of

Ludwishafen and the Teatro de la Cooperación in Buenos Aires.

All of this would not have been possible without the support of the

Spanish Ministry of Culture and the Comunidad de Madrid, organisms

that have provided uninterrupted financial assistance since 1996.

www.aracaladanza.com 9

about the director and choreographer

Enrique Cabrera is the soul of Aracaladanza. From an eclectic

background, he has developed an imaginative world in which dance is

made a vehicle for the magic and fantasy created on stage.

He has succeeded in bringing together a group of artists in a creative

project that seeks to offer quality performances for all audiences. The

fundamental contributions of the musician and composer, the lighting

designer, the stage and set designer, as well as the creators of the

marionettes, form an integral part of Aracaladanza. Not to mention the

dancers, who with their daily work succeed in bringing together pieces

admired by the public and critics alike.

His theatrical education is also united to the puppetry school of the Teatro

San Martín in Buenos Aires, where he still maintains strong personal and

professional ties. One mustn’t forget that the company from Buenos

Aires, El Nudo, which has been fundamental in the development of the

choreographer’s most recent work, continues to contribute a decisive

encouragement.

Winner of the grant for outstanding choreographer in the Certamen

Coreográfico de Madrid (Madrid’s Choreography Competition) in 1994, he

was given the opportunity to study at the American Dance Festival

(U.S.A.). His interest has come to focus on the production of shows for

the youngest audience. That pioneer work, hardly understood in its first

moments, has allowed him to develop projects that cross beyond the

terrain of the artistic. In fact, he has conceived shows to be performed in

www.aracaladanza.com 10

those places where dance doesn’t usually appear (hospitals, prisons, and

special education centres).

Enrique Cabrera has also dedicated himself to education and the training

of dancers and creators of shows for children in several cities in Spain.

He also carried out this work at the London Contemporary Dance School

(in London) for Dance East (Ipswich) and recently at the University of

Dundee in Scotland.

He has repeatedly been invited to create shows for various British dance

companies: Bare Bones (“Anywhichway”) in 2005; J.S. Dance

Company (“Dancing on the news”) in 2006 and Nottingham University

(“For Who?”) in 2007. Some of these works have come to share the

stage with those of other English creators and even to be performed at

the Royal Opera House of London.

www.aracaladanza.com 11

I don’t know how to speak French or Russian, or Chinese or

Japanese. I have difficulty expressing myself in English. I

speak Spanish and not always well. However, I’ve danced.

And I’ve been understood all over the world. Above all by

those people who had no problem recognizing themselves; who let

themselves play with the child that never dies.

Pequeños Paraísos comes to be dedicated to them: to those people who

still think the world is a game. To those 4 years old and 100 years old. To

rebellious adolescents and responsible adults. To Spanish and to

Argentinean children. To those skilful Play station players and to those

people clumsy on cell phones. To those who snack on Bollycaos and to

those who drink beer.

Pequeños Paraísos has neither space nor time. It could be Madrid, but

it could also be Buenos Aires. It could be 2006 or 1576.

The Spanish Royal Academy of Language says that

“Paraíso” is, among other things, any very pleasant place. I

like the definition that connects the word with another: Fool’s

Paradise: figurative and familiar, claims the dictionary. And it

adds: Happy imaginations with which each one freely pretends to be

whatever he or she wishes.

What can I do? I must be a fool!

Enrique Cabrera

www.aracaladanza.com 12

Critics have said:

La Voz de Asturias March 3, 2007

“PEQUEÑOS PARAÍSOS”, enormous wonder

With an original score by Mariano Lozano P. Ramos

and directed by Enrique Cabrera, the dancers

Carolina Arija, Natalí Camolez, Gemma Galera,

Raquel de la Plaza and Noelia Pérez offer us an

extraordinary contemporary dance performance, full of magic, wonder

and good taste. The five dancers form a genuine organism that in

addition to dancing, acts, moves dolls and puppets of various sizes from

within or using Bonraku techniques. Their work is supported by splendid

costumes and a continuous display of amazing visual effects that give this

show, made up of eleven small choreographies lasting a total of one-

hour, a vibrating rhythm and pace. Pequeños Paraísos is like a placebo

tonic that cures the wounds of the soul and makes your day; like a

restorative and playful dip in the sea on the beach of your dreams.

But what’s surprising is that the show also has a point of uneasiness,

which is manifested in the presented worlds, flooded by papers and

garbage bags, filled with public officials dressed in the same newspapers

they gather from the floor; they are as invaded by them as we and our

lives are. Nothing exists today if it is not duly recounted, photographed,

filmed, or analyzed in the media. Thus called because in them, news and

intent are mediated, slandering reality as they generate a new one and

determine our lives. Given these complicated circumstances, pessimism

www.aracaladanza.com 13

may well be in order, but wilful optimism and desire, capable of

transforming these generated monsters – paper dwarfs laden with

garbage bags that have their own life; gigantic coloured ostriches; paper

dolls that come to life and move, -- into lovable beings that we would take

home as pets, are more appropriate.

This performance of contemporary dance by Aracaladanza leaves the

crowded and noisy audience with its mouth open in amazement, and

when the final number ends, set over a song by Queen, “I Want to Break

Free”, there’s not a person in the theatre who’s not clamouring for more,

because here, illusion and the tricks and effects that in so many cases

are pure and tiresome exhibitionism form a natural part of the story.

BONI ORTIZ

www.aracaladanza.com 14

Pequeños paraísos is a production of Aracaladanza, in co-production

with the Spanish Ministry of Culture (the National Institute of Performing

Arts and Music), the Comunidad de Madrid (Department of Sports and

Culture) and the Teatro de la Abadía in Madrid.