Compañía Nacional de Danza

The artists of the Company have posed for Javier Salas' camera, and the result has been a series of ELASTIC PORTRAITS with which we have prepared our 2026 calendar. "A dancer needs elasticity not only physically but also mentally, to connect their body with their consciousness and emotions. Thus, an elastic connection between psyche, emotion, the physical, and the spirit is what gives us a complete dancer: generous in listening inwardly and generous in listening outwardly." Muriel Romero "I have always been fascinated by the world of ballet and its environment. Those perfect bodies working to the limit to create beauty in motion. The dance scenes in performance or created for photography may be the most documented when considering a series of images. However, when you go to rehearsals, a lot of different realities appear that have inspired me." "ELASTIC PORTRAITS" tries to capture some of these situations that occur outside the scene. Impossible stretches, postures to the limit or, on some occasions, simply portraits. My objective was to enhance this elasticity from a photographic perspective, looking for an atypical point of view but without losing the beauty of dance." Javier Salas

On Wednesday, November 26, concluding the "Meeting of State Museums: Networks and Territorial Cohesion," the CND will bring to the Hall of Battles at the Palace of the Infantado in Guadalajara the segment dedicated to the queens from the work We Tell Truths that seem Like Lies. "The Queens" portray Queen Christina of Sweden in a duality that invites the viewer to reflect on dichotomies. Both the excerpt and the complete work draw a parallel between the sculptor's relationship with the material and the choreographer's relationship with the dancer's body. The title of the full work, premiered on March 8, 2025, in the Hall of the Muses at the Prado Museum, comes from verses sung by the Muses of Helicon in Hesiod's Theogony, which say: "We know how to tell lies with the appearance of truths." In this case, the order of the phrase is reversed: "we tell truths that seem like lies," to emphasize the role of art in creating an apparent reality that is seemingly fictional, but sometimes more intense and revealing of the mysteries of the reality around us.

We return from our recent tour to the People's Republic of China deeply saddened by the sudden passing of our dear colleague Ginés Martínez Caballero, a talented theater man, an exceptional professional, and a unique human being. Honoring his memory and the enormous effort and generosity he dedicated as Technical Director to this tour, we decided to carry on with it, driven by professional responsibility, though immersed in profound sadness at his loss. Our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones. Ginés, you will always be in the hearts of all of us who are part of the CND. RIP

Graduated from the National Ballet School of Warsaw, the Polish master began his career as a soloist with the National Ballet of Poland. He worked at the Marseille Ballet, with Rosella Hightower and Roland Petit, at the Royal Swedish Ballet, and at Maurice Béjart's Ballet du XXème siècle, with whom he closely collaborated by assisting and restaging his ballets around the world. Together with the company's rehearsal mistresses and over the course of two weeks, Master Nardelli has conducted the daily preparatory class to strengthen the technique, flexibility, and musicality of the entire cast, motivating them to give the Shanghai and Beijing audiences their full artistic potential in the roles they will perform in José Carlos Martínez's ballet Don Quijote, from October 18 to 26. In his long career, the master has also been invited by the National Ballet of Montreal, the Opera of Rome, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Warsaw Opera, the National Ballet of Finland, the Ballet, the Tokyo Ballet, and many others.

The dancers of the Company have had the luxury of being accompanied by Azari Plisetski, dancer, choreographer, and master of dance who has followed the last preparatory rehearsals for the performance in which the revivals of Paquita Grand pas Classique and Raymonda Divertimento will premiere. A heartfelt day for which we leave you a selection of photographs from the rehearsals of the wonderful program that we will represent next Thursday, September 25, at the Teatro del Museo Universidad de Navarra, MUN in Pamplona, with last tickets on sale and two interesting complementary activities, a round table on the 24th and a meeting with the public on the 25th at 5:00 PM before the 7:00 PM performance.

After the summer holidays, the headquarters of the Company resumes its daily activities with preparatory classes and rehearsals for the works it will present in the new season, most of which are premieres by acclaimed choreographers such as William Forsythe, Jacopo Godani, Johan Inger, Luz Arcas, and Antonio de Rosa and Mattia Russo (Kor’sia), but there are also some classic works recovered after their premiere by the Company years ago, such as Serenade, Paquita Grand pas Classique, and Raymonda Divertimento. In this way, the National Dance Company, led by Muriel Romero, moves towards achieving a cross-cutting project that embraces different styles, featuring choreographers of renowned international and national prestige as well as emerging young talents, with this new season in which 16 productions will be presented, 9 of which are premieres and 3 are absolute premieres. The CND will showcase this ambitious proposal on national and international tours, including a tour to the People's Republic of China where it will visit the cities of Shanghai and Beijing.

Rehearsals to prepare for the premiere of the play Echoes from a Restless Soul of the NumEros program, with which we will visit some of the most important stages in our country next season, have begun with its creator, Jacopo Godani, accompanied by assistants Vicenzo de Rosa and Zoe Lenzi. The choreography has been created by Godani, a former prominent solo dancer of the Frankfurt Ballet and former director of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company, which premiered the piece in 2016. It is a composition based on Gaspard de la Nuit for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, which poses great technical demands, where the mathematical precision of the gesture coexists with a bodily energy of visceral, almost animal intensity. With these rehearsal sessions with the master Godani, we conclude the list of guest masters who have accompanied us this season.

The former dancer of the CND and stager of William Forsythe since 2022, José Carlos Blanco, has returned to the company's headquarters for the staging of Playlist (Track 1, 2), an innovative and highly demanding work at a technical level for the twelve male performers for whom it is conceived. The premiere of this work, based on the idea of a "playlist" with music by Peven Everett (Surely Shorty) and Lion Babe (Impossible, Jax Jones remix) is scheduled for December at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, as part of the NumEros program, alongside Serenade by George Balanchine and Echoes from a Restless Soul by Jacopo Godani. With José Carlos Blanco, the dancers have worked thoroughly to achieve the versatility and technical range that this work requires, which fuses classical and contemporary dance and incorporates it into the CND's repertoire for the upcoming season.

The Fernando de Rojas Theatre of the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid hosts on July 10 and 11 the presentation of the nine works emerging from the Creadores CND project, a creative collaboration project that returns to the CND under the direction of its current director, Muriel Romero, to provide a development space for the choreographic concerns of the company's artists.

The official teacher and repetiteur of the © George Balanchine Trust, Colleen Neary has worked with the cast of the CND during the central weeks of June to prepare for the return of Serenade, the famous choreography by the Russian-American creator and a prime example of his very personal style.