Rocío Molina. Cracks and Fissures of a Body in Clay

The third edition of the series The Chairs of Tàpies comes to a close with the proposal of Rocío Molina, Cracks and Fissures of a Body in Clay. The work is a performative lecture presenting a living reflection on the flamenco body as a terrain of knowledge and transmission.

Through words and action, the artist shares the gestures that are ever-present in her practice, exploring how thought is embodied in movement and corporeal experience gives rise to knowledge.

“Through my flamenco feints and intentions, I will drag you inwards through an existing crack in this body of clay, body of accumulation and recipient of memory, thus falling into senselessness in that very place where we cannot find our footing, infinitely distanced from the body, in a place without time.

For there is no place.

There is no body.

Only the true sense of the body will give way to existence.

As Mónica Valenciano would say: ‘When non-time touches the body, something will have been danced.’”

Rocío Molina is an iconoclastic choreographer and dancer who has forged a language of her own, grounded in the reinvented tradition of flamenco, respecting its essences and embracing the avant-garde. Radically free, in her pieces she unites technical virtuosity, contemporary investigation and conceptual risk. Unafraid to weave alliances with other disciplines and artists, her choreographies are unique stage events that draw from cultural ideas and forms running from cinema to literature, while likewise including philosophy and painting.

Her artistic endeavour has been recognised with important awards, including the 2022 Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts of the Spanish Ministry of Culture, and the prestigious Silver Lion for Dance at the Venice Biennale, as well as the Positano dance award, the Spanish National Dance Prize in 2010, the UK National Dance Award in 2016 and 2019 and four Max Awards. She has also received the 2023 Talía Award for best performer for Vuelta a Uno, as well as Talía Awards for best choreography, show and performance in 2026 for Calentamiento, and the 2026 Andalusia Culture Award in the category of flamenco.

Molina is one of Spain’s most internationally celebrated artists, and her works have been seen in the world’s most prestigious venues, including Lond0n’s Barbican Centre, New York City Center, the Avignon Festival, Esplanade in Singapore, Festival Tanz Im August in Berlin, Seoul’s SPAF Festival, the Stanislavsky Theatre in Moscow, the National Theatre of Taiwan, Dansens Hus in Oslo and Stockholm, Chaillot Théâtre National in Paris and Tokyo’s Bunkamura. She was associate artist at Chaillot Théâtre national de la danse (Paris), and is currently associate artist at Théâtre de Nîmes.

Series “The Chairs of Tàpies” are curated by Judith Barnés.

[Photo: Simone Fratini]