Ciutat Flamenco Barcelona

Ciutat Flamenco Barcelona

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Contemporary flamenco Barcelona 2025 – 2026 Website →

A spectacular festival where dance is almost more of a protagonist than flamenco itself. A brilliant initiative from Taller de Músics.

Ciutat Flamenco is the Barcelona festival that treats flamenco as what it is: a living art, in permanent evolution, capable of absorbing contemporary dance, audiovisual research and interdisciplinary collaboration without losing its roots.

It started at Nau Bostik, when I photographed the presentation of Vanesa Aibar and the Estampa collective’s Cristalización IV. There I ran into programmer Lluís Cabrera, whom I already knew from Flamenco de Barrio, and with the organisation’s permission I was able to cover the rest of the festival.

From 19 to 26 October 2025, Ciutat Flamenco spread its programme across several Barcelona venues. Each concert offered a different vision of contemporary flamenco: movement research, revisited tradition, interdisciplinary collaborations. The body and movement as the central axis — dance doesn’t accompany flamenco here, it takes the lead.

What we saw (2025)

Vanesa Aibar with Estampa, Captura U / Fuga by José Manuel Álvarez, Districte Flamenco, Julio Ruiz — La Familia, Ciutat Batalla, Chicharrón Circo Flamenco and Flamencxs del Barrio. Seven very different proposals, all within a festival that knows flamenco has no single path.

Discovering the pleasure of combining photography with written reflection on what happens on stage is one of the things that makes it worth being there. We will certainly be back.

2026: we came back

And we did. This year, accredited once again, we were able to attend most of the shows in the programme, from Nau Bostik to SAT! in Sant Andreu, the Ateneu Popular de Nou Barris and the Centre Artesà Tradicionàrius.

We started on Sunday 18 October with a double bill at Nau Bostik: Esperanza Garrido’s intimate cante in Firmamento, with Juan Anguita on guitar, and the emerging work of Districte Flamenco, with Daniela Martín Heras, Adrián Gómez and Marina Walpercin. Then came Ana Morales with Más que baile, a near-impossible balance between purists and contemporaries. Jordi Latorre, Carmela Muñoz and Zúbel Arana pushed flamenco to the edge in Después del diluvio electrónico. Ciutat Batalla moved outdoors, in front of the Ateneu, despite the cold and damp. And we closed with Óbito, by Yoel Vargas and Juan Manuel de las Heras.

Same approach as last year: not chasing the perfect shot, but dancing with the 70–200 mm to the rhythm of the music and trying to capture movement. And, as always, a short write-up of each show on the blog.

Editions documented on the blog