«Cada canción
es un remanso
del amor.

Y cada suspiro
un remanso
del grito»

«Jedes Lied
ist eine Oase
der Liebe.

Und jeder Seufzer
eine Oase
des Schrei’s.»
Federico Garcia Lorca

Dance company Flamencos en route is celebrating its 35th season with «ay!». The dance and music production leads the audience into the poetic universe of the Spanish author Federico Garcia Lorca.

The exclamation «ay!» is ubiquitous in Lorca’s poetry. It expresses both lament and delight, while longing for nocturnal tranquillity. Sound and articulation of the cry represent inexhaustible realms of feelings that transmute into choreographic vignettes, oases of moods created by intense music and dance.

In Lorca’s poetry – especially in poemas del cante jondo– nocturnal gardens and landscapes are inhabited by mysterious dancing creatures. In «ay!», these creatures represent an archaic and surreal visual world, influenced by three different choreographic styles of contemporary flamenco.

In Brigitta Luisa Merki’s dramaturgy, the scenarios develop in the spirit of Lorca, who wrote: «All arts are capable of «duende», but where it finds greatest range, naturally, is in music, dance, and spoken poetry. For these arts require a living body to interpret them, being forms that are born, die, and open their contours against an exact present.»