El cante rasgueado +
Descomposición/Choro
Commissioned by BoCA, this project brings together Niño de Elche — a singular figure in the Spanish music and performance scene who identifies as “ex-flamenca” — and Pedro G. Romero — a visual artist and researcher, winner of Spain’s 2024 National Award for Plastic Arts — in a work presented in two formats: a conference-performance with Pedro G. Romero, and a concert with Niño de Elche and folk musicians from the Iberian “Stripe”. At a time when folk culture still bears the traces of its instrumentalization by the Iberian dictatorships, this project recovers its original meanings: hybrid , fluid, permeable to others. During a period of research and writing in the Iberian border region, between Portugal and Spain, Pedro G. Romero and Niño de Elche activated collaborative practices that challenge the fossilised forms of tradition and expose its friction with the present, transporting the two between the fandango and Portuguese tango, and the viola campaniça and Sephardic liturgy. More than collection or reinterpretation, the project acts as an artistic and political gesture: restoring folk culture’s power as a site of hybridisation, conflict and reinvention.
In the ‘stripe’ that separates — or unites — the south of Portugal, Huelva and Extremadura, sound operates as a link in a chain between geographies and histories. There we hear the cante alentejano with its viola campaniças, the fandango cané in Alosno chanted by groups of men over the incessant strumming of guitars, or even the luso-extremaduran tangos and jaleos handed down by Portuguese Romani communities.
Artistic dossier
TEAM & CREDITS
"El cante rasgueado" (concert)
Concept: Niño de Elche e Pedro G. Romero
Direction and interpretation: Niño de Elche
Interpretation: David Pereira (viola campaniça), Guilherme Colaço (viola campaniça), Miguel Vargas (guitarra flamenca), Juan Vargas (guitarra flamenca)
Sound design: Emílio Pascual
Commission and production: BoCA - Biennial of Contemporary Arts
International distribution: Inês Le Gué | jardin&cour
Coproduction: CAM - Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian, Museo Nacional del Traje
Support: Programação Cultural Cruzada Portugal-Espanha – 50 anos de democracia; Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico; Comissão de Coordenação e Desenvolvimento Regional do Alentejo; Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) - Programa para la Internacionalización de la Cultura Española (PICE).
--
TEAM & CREDITS
"Descomposición/Choro" (conference)
Concept: Niño de Elche e Pedro G. Romero
Direction, research and interpretation: Pedro G. Romero
Sound collection: Emílio Pascual
Sound mixing and Editing: Xavier Erquizia
Video editing: Carmen Alonso
Editing and proofreading: Natalia Zarco
Commission and production: BoCA - Biennial of Contemporary Arts
International distribution: Inês Le Gué | jardin&cour
Coproduction: CAM - Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian, Museo Nacional del Traje
Support: Programação Cultural Cruzada Portugal-Espanha – 50 anos de democracia; Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico; Comissão de Coordenação e Desenvolvimento Regional do Alentejo; Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) - Programa para la Internacionalización de la Cultura Española (PICE).
NEXT SHOWS
October 3-4, 2025 > CAM - Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian, Lisbon (Portugal) [PREMIERE]
October 9-11, 2025 > Museo del Traje, Madrid (Spain)