Sol Picó proposes an intimate talk to us, as if she were speaking to us from the sofa of her home, about her 20 years of professional career: fears, doubts, unconfessable failures, unrealized dreams...the procession goes on inside...

She will reveal to us how and when inspiration arrives and what happens if it doesn't.

She refreshes our memory through suggestive images of her beginnings and explains to us what a life dedicated to dance in body and soul represents for her: being a woman, mother and artist, an explosive cocktail difficult to avoid exploding in your hands.

Sacrifice and fun accompanied by an exceptional team for 20 years, which has led her to travel to more than 30 countries and to experience how her Mediterranean dance is received in Beijing, Kinshasa or Paris.

She will speak and will ask us questions because she is very interested in what we think, the spectators of this world...are you ready?

Sol Picó is a Spanish dancer and choreographer. Born in Alcoy, she has studied Spanish, classical and contemporary dance and in her productions she combines different techniques and languages in a groundbreaking way. In 1993 she creates the Sol Picó Company with which she has become one of the most unorthodox choreographers and dancers on the Spanish contemporary scene. She has been awarded numerous prizes. In her track record she has more than 10 Max awards, the National Dance Prize of Catalonia (2004), the Barcelona City Dance Prize (2015), the National Dance Prize 2016 and the Cross of Sant Jordi.

Tenacious and daring, Sol Picó develops a 100x100 personal movement based on precision, speed, vitality and power. Her shows –mature, imaginative and always controversial– move the audience and do not leave them indifferent. The quality of her proposals and the humor and dialogue with the spectators are the essence of the work of this challenging and enterprising choreographer. Throughout her career she has premiered more than 30 shows, where theater in small venues is combined with large street productions that she has presented throughout the world, visiting more than 40 countries. Some of her most emblematic pieces are Bésame el Cactus, Paella Mixta, Amor Diesel, El lago de las moscas, Sirena en la Plancha, One-hit wonders, Dancing with frogs, We Women or Malditas Plumas. The creative facet is also nurtured by the pedagogical one, teaching workshops in places such as Carlos III University, the National Dance Academy of Rome or superior Dance conservatories.

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Gelabert has selected some of his favorite solos, presented over the years in theaters in many places around the world and adapted to the characteristics of the place and occasion. In them, he introduces the different pieces with brief comments, whether they are references to the work or personal ones, explanations about their meaning or general ideas about dance, anecdotes or comments of the moment.

It is a way of communicating with the spectators and introducing them to the works they are going to see, and I have been able to verify that it helps establish a complicity and a relaxed and suggestive atmosphere.

This year we celebrate 11 years since the launch of the Festival Abril en Danza. In this new edition we are going to give voice and prominence to artists from diverse generations. It seems urgent to us that emerging artists and Companies begin to find their place, but without losing the experience and accumulated wisdom of our references. Linking the youngest creation with projects that have been maintained over time throughout the years, a matter that we know is very complicated in this Country, is fundamental for the development, respect and consolidation of our profession.

For all these reasons we have sought a range of proposals and body languages, developed from different visions and by artists from diverse generations. Artists of all ages who will take a journey through dance throughout the month of April in the cities of Alicante and Elche. A plurality of universes and visual poetics, where the perspective of young emerging artists is added, leading us to the most current creation, together with the pieces of artists in their maturity period, where mastery and professional trajectory give them an already established character and style of their own.

The Festival once again features the "MACA EN VIVO" program which celebrates its second edition. Expanded programming in collaboration with the MACA and the Museum Consortium. An extensive proposal of several interventions related to performance and live arts that begins in April with Janet Novas, 2021 critical eye award winner, who will be programmed in April.

Guided vermouth tour by Explicarte.

Traditionally, women have been considered second-class citizens in the world of culture. This position was based on a statistic supported by a very limited number of women who had stood out in the field of literature, thought, and the plastic arts. This idea crumbles in the face of a simple consideration: the reduced opportunities they had to develop their personal talents.

On this occasion, we will focus on the figure of Juana Francés, the protagonist of our temporary exhibition.

Open Body Talks.

A project that is based on the conviction that we are at the moment to meet again, to heal after such a long period of distancing. We want to bring bodies together, to regain the confidence of social contact, to let loose bodily expression to the rhythm of music.

Until capacity is reached.

Company: Elías Aguirre and Jorge da Rocha.

Coordinated by: Otra danza.