"I have, I think, put together a dream line-up, with a majority of established artists, but also young people, to illustrate what flamenco has become," François Noël, the director of the festival, told AFP. Théâtre de Nîmes and patron of the festival for 20 years, during the opening night on Wednesday.

Where is this "very classic art" that has its roots in southern Spain going?

"Sometimes towards + world music +, sometimes towards conceptual art or contemporary dance", answers François Noël, who will hand over the reins of the most important event of its kind in France in a few months.

If flamenco "has its very precise codes", the current artists "allow themselves a great freedom of gesture, freeing themselves from dresses, costumes, from all the clichés", underlines the man of the theater.

In this Mediterranean city, which has a large Spanish community, the public "evolves with us", notes François Noël.

"Some supporters of orthodoxy would like to +museify+ flamenco, but we will not go back".

The nearly 12,000 tickets put up for sale for the fifteen shows scheduled until January 21 have almost all found takers.

Spanish dancer Ana Morales during the "Peculiar" show, January 11, 2023 at the flamenco festival in Nîmes © Pascal GUYOT / AFP

Illustrating this avant-garde spirit, "Peculiar", a performance by the former soloist dancer of the Andalusian Flamenco Ballet Ana Morales, sold out.

When she enters the stage, the Spanish dancer and choreographer strolls in a long dress, in the middle of a small group of men and women dressed in contemporary costumes.

Suddenly, she clicks her heels, undulates her hand, then her body, and plays the veil effects of her white silk outfit, to the sound of a guitar and a harp, in a refined, sensual and haughty gesture.

Cigarettes and frills

Classic flamenco?

No, for more than an hour, "Peculiar" multiplies borrowings -- from contemporary dance, trip-hop, electronic music --.

Ana Morales smokes a few cigarettes on stage with her gypsy singer, Tomas de Perrate, changes her costume three times, strips half naked, fades in front of her dancers before performing a solo in a frilly green dress fallen from the sky. .

Spanish dancer Ana Morales (g) during the "Peculiar" show, January 11, 2023 at the flamenco festival in Nîmes © Pascal GUYOT / AFP

Brazilian drums, a throbbing synth, recitatives in Spanish, two songs in English with rock accents, video projections, some classic mano a mano by a dancer and a dancer, long silences: the show advances in rhythm , accelerations in rest time.

"For me, flamenco is always a starting point, but what my body wants to express, I leave it absolute freedom", explains Ana Morales, back in her dressing room, after a nice ovation.

"What the public wants is to feel things, it's authenticity," adds this regular at the Nîmes festival, for whom her art is above all an "encounter" with different styles and artists.

"I really appreciated this staging which is out of the traditional", said at the exit a spectator, Patrick Chauvière.

"I prefer traditional flamenco. There were good ideas, but also too much dead time," nuanced the friend who accompanied him, Dominique Gourdin.

For another week, the proposals will multiply.

Rocio Molina, another avant-garde artist, will come to conclude his "Trilogia sobre la guitarra", the second part of which caused a sensation last year on this same stage.

Spanish dancer Ana Morales during the "Peculiar" show, January 11, 2023 at the flamenco festival in Nîmes © Pascal GUYOT / AFP

Israel Galvan and Nivo de Elche will also combine tradition and innovation in what is announced as a "quarrel of titans between two geniuses of flamenco", while Andres Marin and Jon Maya will confront flamenco and Basque dance.

© 2023 AFP