Rafaela Carrasco's meditation on creativity that doesn’t quite ignite. Rating
Good
There is a genuinely arresting image at the heart of CREAVIVA‘s opening moments. Rafaela Carrasco drifts across the stage like an apparition – spectral, weightless – while her musicians and singers form a tight circle below, lit from within as though conducting some private séance. It is the kind of theatrical image that makes an audience hold its breath, and for a few minutes, the air in the room feels genuinely charged. What follows struggles to sustain that early electricity.
CREAVIVA is an ambitious undertaking: a suite of nine pieces, each inspired by one of the ancient Greek muses, tracing the hidden interior of the creative process – the loneliness of waiting, the sudden rupture of inspiration, the unpredictable journey from first thought to finished work. Co-directed by Antonio Ruz, with texts by Álvaro Tato and an impressive roster of composers, the piece finds Carrasco – celebrated for honouring flamenco tradition while reaching toward something more contemporary – operating with evident intelligence and rigour.
The ensemble is undeniably accomplished. There is genuine warmth and camaraderie among the six performers, and the transitions between pieces, including some impressively seamless costume changes, are handled with quiet professionalism. But professionalism, however admirable, is not the same as danger, and CREAVIVA rarely places itself in danger.
The nine vignettes pass with a smoothness that, paradoxically, works against the work’s stated subject: creation is rarely smooth. It is jagged, contradictory, and surprising. Too often here, the emotional peaks feel anticipated rather than discovered, the connections between episodes remaining elusive where they might have been revelatory.
Gloria Montesinos‘ lighting design is elegant and frequently beautiful, but similarly cautious. There are moments where a bolder theatrical intervention – sharper contrast, a sudden plunge into darkness – might have cracked something open. On occasion, the restraint works against the performance itself, leaving Carrasco’s precise and eloquent movement harder to read than it deserves to be.
What makes flamenco so singularly thrilling is the sense of a live dialogue between body, music and voice – improvised on the knife-edge of the moment. That tension surfaces in flashes here, particularly in the earlier sections, where Carrasco reminds us what a commanding and magnetic stage presence she is.
The aspiration is genuine, the craft is clear. But in a piece about the terrifying leap of creation, CREAVIVA could afford to leap a little more.
Direction, Choreography and Dancer: Rafaela Carrasco
Co-direction: Antonio Ruz
Dramaturgy: Álvaro Tato
Percussion and Sound Design: Pablo Martín Jones
Lighting and Set Design: Gloria Montesinos
Costume Design: Belén de la Quintana
CREAVIVA has concluded its run at Sadler’s Wells.
