The gestural memories were aligned in a visceral choreography, marked by dancing and flamenco singing, in a dialogue with the spectator where the public and the performer nourish each other. Through her body, the artist explores physical and material transformations of a markedly ritualistic nature, in a scenario where the earth invades the space that the body occupies.

Strongly influenced by Tenebrist painting, and its themes associated with suffering, torture and sacrifice, with her new solo, Andalusian dancer Mercedes Quijada hides more than what she lets on. The movement is confined to an area no larger than a small platform, where the lighting seems determined to show only wounds in the darkness. It is from your body that the sound and rhythm of the show emanates, and it is also from your body that we take any image or reading.

In a show of great spatial and visual concentration, Mercedes Quijada creates a lacework made of stories and emotions transformed by the mysterious need to swallow and store them inside, deeper, further away.

Drawing on family experiences, and the “natural school” that has preserved flamenco through generations, Mercedes Quijada seeks to get closer to the roots that determined hers, namely in the expressive use of her hands, and in the way her percussive vocation encompasses a legacy of desire and seduction, as well as violence and servitude.

Marked by the absolute predominance of the body, or the energy contained within it, “A·Dentro” seems invested with an iron will to contain the manifestations of the body within it, and to not allow any expansion in the scenic space, which is reduced to black on black. Black on black. As if everything were darkness, beyond the wounds that illuminate it.