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Online zambra workshop

From July 26, 2021 until July 28, 202112:00 p.m.
ONLINE
Casa Árabe’s YouTube channel. 12:00 p.m.
Spanish

As part of the Second International Meeting on Al-Andalus in Mexico (EISIAM), dancer Patricia Álvarez gave this three-session workshop. From July 26 to 28, we will be posting the recordings publicly on our YouTube channel.

In the Arabic of Al-Andalus, “zambra” meant “party.” Therefore, the “zambra” was originally a collective space for entertainment. The term has acquired different meanings throughout the ages: mythical dances linked to the Moorish wedding ritual, traditional folklore dances linked to the wedding ritual of the gypsies in Granada’s Sacromonte, a flamenco style now almost in disuse, an Andalusia-oriented construct in the form of a song influenced by flamenco...

Through the three sessions in these workshops, we will use the body to experience all of these places which involve an imaginary that recreates and invents places from the past, while also examining the influence of the Al-Andalus on flamenco.

The Second International Meeting on Al-Andalus in Mexico (EISIAM) is an interdisciplinary, international gathering that seeks to provide a space for reflection and the creation of social change through a dialogue among artists, professors, students and the general public, all in terms of acknowledging the cultural diversity that forms today’s Mexico. The summit brings together everything that once coexisted in Al-Andalus to learn about, acknowledge, recover, document and share the legacy of Al-Andalus in Mexico in 2021, a year in which we are commemorating five hundred years of an encounter thought to have occurred between “two worlds.”

Patricia Álvarez 
An eclectic dancer, her style combines the traditional dances of the Mediterranean with contemporary dance and flamenco. Born in Madrid to an Andalusian and Castilian family, a search for identity through movement and dance is a constant in her work.

She holds a degree in Arabic Philology and Islam (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid). At the same time, she studies and researches the language of the body and gesture in the cultural traditions of the Mediterranean region. This research can be seen in her work “Cuerpos que se desplazan” (“Bodies Displaced”) which addresses the relationship between the different traumatic displacements of peoples and the emergence and development of various forms of artistic expression and communication that use movement/sound in a central role.

She collaborates with different artists on projects for the theater and to raise awareness, being a steadfast believer in the need for reflection through and along with dance. Performative conferences, workshops and video dance are ways she uses to reflect on the search for identity through dance, the body as the main vehicle of expression and creation, and the hybrids which arise in the form of styles as a result of constant exchanges amid bodies. She performs her work internationally at different places across Europe and Latin America