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The Drought. An Oasis.
The Drought: An Oasis is a contemporary flamenco performance that brings together dance, live guitar, and flamenco singing (cante) to explore themes of water, drought, and migration. Originally created in Southern Spain, this new version of the piece is now presented in Catalonia, while keeping its strong Andalusian roots.
The show reflects on the historical impact of Francoist hydraulic policies, including the Badajoz Decree, and on the migration of Andalusian working-class communities who moved to Catalonia to work in industry and construction. These histories are translated on stage through flamenco music and movement. Some of the lyrics are sung in Catalan, alongside Spanish, as a symbolic gesture that connects flamenco with the linguistic and cultural reality of Catalonia and Barcelona. On stage, the performance features flamenco dance, live guitar, and cante, combined with a strong visual dimension. The final part of the piece takes the form of a “final de fiesta” inspired by Rumba Catalana, bringing collective energy, rhythm, and celebration to the stage.
Dates and times
Saturday, March 28, 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Address
Moll de Barcelona, Port Vell (Port of Barcelona). Scene.
This new iteration of The Drought: An oasis extends the project’s geographical and conceptual scope from Southern Spain to Catalonia, while remaining rooted in its Andalusian origins and political grounding. The shift responds to the historical legacy of the Badajoz Decree and the hydraulic policies of Francoism—interventions whose consequences far exceeded the territories where dams and reservoirs were physically constructed. Catalonia emerges here as a key site shaped by those policies: a region transformed by internal migration, accelerated industrialization, and enduring class asymmetries.
The northward movement of the piece echoes the trajectories of Andalusian working-class communities who migrated to Catalonia to sustain its industrial and bourgeois expansion. This history of displacement is mirrored in the dramaturgy through a process of linguistic and musical reconfiguration. Like land subjected to extraction, language begins to dry out, crack, and mutate under pressure, reshaping itself in contact with new terrains.
Words cross borders before bodies do.
They dry out, crack, adapt.
Water remembers every language that named it.
Water—or the lack of it—appears as a counter-archive: a medium that remembers without hierarchy, holding the traces of every voice that has named it. From this perspective, Catalonia is understood as a territory built through accumulated layers of displacement and cultural hybridization. The multilingual dimension of the piece makes the tensions between integration and erasure audible, insisting on accumulation and coexistence.
The final section unfolds as a fin de fiesta structured through the codes of Rumba Catalana. This choice foregrounds a musical form born in Barcelona’s Romani and migrant neighborhoods, where Andalusian, Afro-Caribbean, and Catalan influences converged. Rhythm becomes a collective strategy of endurance.
The Drought: An oasis proposes a continuity between territories bound together by extraction, labor, and ecological violence. From this continuity, the work opens a space to imagine forms of coexistence that do not deny crisis, but accept it as the condition from which to think, move, and create otherwise.
Juan G. Benot
Poet and researcher, he is the author of the poetry collections Oración en el huerto and Las cañadas oscuras. He is currently researching Rhetoric and Modernity at universities in Madrid and Groningen. He collaborates with flamenco singer Carmen Yruela on stage projects combining poetry and flamenco. He also writes as a contemporary art critic for Babelia and has been invited to international poetry and performing arts festivals.
Carmen G. Campos
A flamenco guitarist from Seville, she has enjoyed a remarkable international career. Trained from the age of seven, she has performed at major festivals such as the Festival d'Art Flamenco de Mont-de-Marsan and the Oslo Flamenco Festival. A graduate in flamenco guitar from the Córdoba Conservatory of Music, she has played throughout Europe and Latin America, receiving particular recognition for her virtuosity and mastery of accompaniment.
Laura Guastini
An Argentine flamenco dancer and performer, she began her training at the age of fifteen and studied with renowned teachers in Seville. Based in Seville since 2017, she continues to develop her artistic career there. She has worked with several companies, touring internationally, and has taught flamenco in various countries, establishing herself as a versatile and committed performer.
Carmen Yruela
A flamenco singer and professor at the Jaén Conservatory of Music, Carmen Yruela combines flamenco tradition with contemporary approaches. She has performed in tablaos and peñas in Seville and brought her work to international stages in Uzbekistan, Argentina, and Estonia. Her interdisciplinary practice connects flamenco with poetry and visual creation. She is currently preparing her first solo album in collaboration with electronic musician Manul.
Álex Martín Rod
Curator and researcher based in Andalusia. His practice focuses on body politics, critical ecologies, and theories of desire. Between 2024 and 2025, he served as Assistant Curator at TBA21, working on exhibitions such as The Ecologies of Peace (C3A), At-Tāriq, and Terraphilia at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. He co-directs the international festival Arquitecturas Deseantes and was co-curator of the Málaga chapter of the Art Explora Festival.
