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The Flamenco Festival returns to Sadler’s Wells for a fortnight this summer, opening with Olivier Award-winning dancer and choreographer Sara Baras, who performs across the first week. The second week’s acts in Sadler’s Wells Theatre and the Lilian Baylis Studio showcase modern works that explore flamenco and gender, contemporary pieces by leading female choreographers, as well as traditional productions and guitar performances by acclaimed musicians – all looking at the Romani roots of flamenco culture. 

Olivier Award-winning Sara Baras (5 – 9 July) returns with Alma, a love letter to flamenco’s origins, for the first week of the Flamenco Festival. Baras blends classical flamenco elements with bolero rhythms, while paying respect to flamenco’s techniques – siguiriya, soleá, caña, rumba and buleria – and fusing them with her own modern touch. She is supported by an ensemble cast and a live band. Baras last performed at Sadler’s Wells in 2019 with the acclaimed production Sombras.    

Latin Grammy Award-winning Vicente Amigo (10 July) has been dubbed one of the most accomplished flamenco guitarists of his generation. He presents a concert that pushes flamenco’s boundaries, drawing from cultural inspirations worldwide – fusing jazz, folk and South American rhythms. Amigo is seen as a successor to the composer and flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía.    
 
Olga Pericet (11 July), winner of Spain’s National Dance Prize 2018, returns to the Flamenco Festival with a new solo, La Leona, in which she strips herself physically and spiritually for an intimate experience with the audience. Pericet's free interpretation combines theatre and dance in a poetic and surreal world filled with imagery that evokes Westerns, wakes and the stars. La Leona – “the lioness” alludes to both the animal and Antonio De Torres’ iconic guitar. Seen as the most important guitar maker of the 19th century, De Torres’ model La Leona inspired the modern classical guitar as it is known today.   
   
Estévez & Paños (12 July) Spain’s National Dance Award 2019 winning duo, presents La Confluencia, a voyage into flamenco’s history. Showcasing the versatility of the male flamenco dancer with five performers and a live soundscape, this interpretation of the roots of flamenco codes brings together the heritage of the many people that lived in Andalusia. Iberian, Roma, Jewish and African cultures that influenced flamenco are woven together with power and delicacy. 
 
Sí, quiero is Mercedes de Córdoba’s declaration of what she wants from the world and a production that celebrates life itself (13 July). Meaning “Yes, I do”, this piece sees Córdoba and a cast of female flamenco dancers create their own wedding ceremony. Wrapped in gowns and showered with petals, the nuptial celebrations offer moments of calm and passion, hope and madness. 
 
Gala Flamenca (14 & 15 July) is the anticipated intergenerational all-male production featuring Manuel Liñán, Alfonso de Losa, El Yiyo and Carrete de Málaga. Liñán, known for subverting gender roles, returns to Sadler’s Wells with his signature flair after the acclaimed ¡VIVA! in 2022, with Alfonso de Losa, a Festival de Jerez Critic’s Choice Award winner. The two carry their reputation as mavericks of the flamenco world to look past gender in this piece and project all of flamenco’s history onto their own bodies. They are joined by 27-year-old talent Miguel Fernández Ribas, known as El Yiyo – a rising star in flamenco. Born into a Roma family in Cataluña, he is known for his remarkable dancing and rhythmic foot-stomping. Gala Flamenca's cast is completed by special guest Carrete de Málaga, the 83-year-old talent known as “the Gypsy Fred Astaire”. 
 
A series of six more intimate dance and music pieces in the Lilian Baylis Studio compliment the Sadler’s Wells Theatre programme in the Festival’s second week. These are staggered in time to enable audiences to attend events in both venues. 

Manuel Liñan’s new work Muerta de Amor, explores one's need for loving relationships (12 July). The contact between dancers and crucially, the absence of it, is central to this work. Julio Ruiz and Javier De La Asunción (14 July) present Tocar a un hombre, a duet that explores languages of touch, sensation and feeling – and seeks to reaffirm the dancers’ identities. Both works look at the desire for touch and intimacy, what holds us back, and what drives us forward. 
 
With guitar shows, Rafael Riqueni (12 July), from Seville’s Triana neighbourhood, brings his distinctive style with Herencia, one of his recent Latin Grammy-nominated recordings. Nino Josele's Galaxias is a visionary blend of flamenco and traditional jazz (14 July). Albéniz Flamenco is an intimate tribute to the work and legacy of composer Isaac Albéniz, presented by José María Gallardo and Miguel Ángel Cortés, two of the most respected guitarists in recent decades (15 July). 
 
The festival closes with a DJ night (15 July) where the audience is invited to join in on the dancefloor to enjoy a combination of avant-garde electronica DJ’ing with queer flamenco and experimental reggaeton. With Yeli Yeli, Cádiz-based singer Álvaro Romero (lead singer of Romero Martin); Lisbon-based producer Pedro da Linha (founder of Enchufada); and Portugese DJ Branko (part of the music collective Buraka Som Sistema) – explore how colonialism has impacted Spain and Portugal’s music.  

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