La Jornada: Choreography fuses academic technique and contemporary experimentation

The king’s wavesthe National Dance Company (CND) and Visual Dance bring academic technique and contemporary experimentation face to face.

The vertical line of the ballet begins to bend: twists appear, bodies that abandon classical purity and enter another zone articulated by fantastic imagination and the power of myths. From that friction arises the piece inspired by The last unicornby Peter S. Beagle, which premieres tomorrow at the Guillermina Bravo Dance Theater of the Centro Cultural del Bosque.

“We chose to move away from a linear narrative and work from symbols and emotional states,” explained director and choreographer Patricia Marín Escutia, who co-directs along with Leonardo Beltrán and Rogelio Marín, in an interview.

The work avoids literally transferring the novel to the stage and concentrates its strength on images and atmospheres. Amanthea, the last unicorn, stops being a literary character and acquires another condition: a figure suspended between the ethereal and the human.

Amanthea is played by Stephania Fierro, Valeria García and Zara Zavala; Prince Lir, by William Woodward and Fausto Serrano; Schmendrick, by Alexander Mitiaev and Julián García, and Molly Grue, by Alexis Escamilla, Jesse Vega and Valeria Méndez. The rest of the characters in the fantastic universe are distributed among different performers during the season.

The dialogue between both groups marks the dynamic. The CND provides technical rigor, excellence and classic structure; Visual Dance adds an interdisciplinary methodology that crosses movement, theatricality and visual arts.

Odyssey on the imagination

“It is not a succession of steps, but an odyssey of the imagination,” said Marín. The movement stops functioning as a showcase of virtuosity and charges the body with emotion rather than exhibiting it.

The Red Bull bursts in as a presence that destabilizes everything: a creature that guards King Haggard and embodies fear and confinement. The bodies compress, lean, as if responding to an invisible threat.

More than an antagonist, it is a constant pressure that pushes and contains. “The choreography embraces the feelings of characters like Amanthea and the Red Bull more than the events of the book,” said the director. On the other side, Schmendrick and Molly Grue introduce closeness and humor into a landscape dominated by symbols.

The visual construction sustains that universe without resorting to great artifices. Gabriel Torres’ lighting works with shadows and fleeting apparitions; Sara Salomón’s costumes develop a dark fantasy aesthetic with retrofuturistic features.

“The costumes do not define the characters; they also build the universe, where the classic and the contemporary meet,” added Marín.

The original music by Rogelio Marín and Rodo Hernández moves the stage creation towards another register. Electronic resonances, ancestral echoes and a voice in off inspired by the existentialist atmosphere of Ghost in the Shell They build a soundscape suspended between the organic and the synthetic.

For the director, this mix allows “to evoke the ancestral and the contemporary in order to explore the beauty of mythology” and “transform wonder into a living force that reaches different generations.”

Although it dialogues with childhoods, it avoids simplifying emotions or turning the experience into an obvious lesson. Imagination appears here as a tool to relate to loss, fear and desire without giving up complexity. The intention is to assume fantasy as “a real territory of human experience” and recover “the ability to imagine the world beyond the rational.”

Inclusion has also been part of the project since its origin. The season incorporates a relaxed performance aimed at neurodivergent people and the participation of Mexican Sign Language interpreters integrated into the scenic design.

“Inclusion is not an addition, but part of the vocation of the season,” stressed Patricia Marín Escutia. Lights, sound levels and dynamics were conceived to expand access and build “a sensitive space.”

After 15 years of Visual Dance work with projects aimed at children, The king’s waves insists on a concrete idea: the fantastic can still occupy a place in adult experience. “The magical does not disappear, it becomes invisible to those who forget how to look,” concluded Patricia Marín.

The performances will take place from tomorrow until May 24 at the Guillermina Bravo Dance Theater of the Centro Cultural del Bosque (Reforma and Campo Marte), Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturdays at 1 and 7 p.m., and Sundays at 1 and 6 p.m. The ticket costs 80 pesos.