Flamenco dance creation and contemporary interpretation have been recognized with the 2023 National Dance Awards granted by the Ministry of Culture and Sports, endowed with 30,000 euros. The Sevillian bailaora Rafaela Carrasco (1972), a disciple of Matilde Coral and Mario Maya and who founded her company two decades ago, has been awarded with the category of creation, the jury highlighting her “marked choreographic discourse” and being “a benchmark transmitting his particular style to future generations”.
For her part, Melania Olcina (Barcelona, ??1982) has deserved the award in the interpretive modality “for her unique personality, added to an expressive and poetic intelligent body that excites and hypnotizes the viewer, as well as for her versatility and stage maturity”.
Although born in Barcelona, ??this performer, choreographer and video artist has trained and projected professionally in Madrid, where she graduated from the Mariemma Conservatory, graduated in Art History from the Complutense, and took a master’s degree in Thought and Contemporary Scenic Creation from the Superior School of Dramatic Art of Castilla y León in the pandemic years.
In the last decade he has worked for the Israeli company Sharon Fridman and, since 2010, with the Antonio Ruz National Award winner, who is part of the jury for this 2023 edition convened by the Ministry. She has been seen dancing with Ruz in Double Bach or in La Nit de Sant Joan, Robert Gerhard’s ballet that the civil war cut short and that was rescued and presented a couple of years ago in the Foyer del Liceu. She also appears in the video clip A la deriva by the musical group Vetusta Morla, and in El Baberillo de Lavapiés, for the Teatro de la Zarzuela. As a video artist, she has received awards such as the Video Movimiento’15 Video Dance Festival in Colombia.
The jury, chaired by the general director of Inaem, Joan Francesc Marco, included the journalist Olga Baeza; the cultural manager and former director of Inaem, José Manuel Garrido Guamán; the choreographer and director of the Flamenco Madrid festival, Ángel Rojas, the aforementioned choreographer Antonio Ruz; the professor of the Carlos III University Rosa San Segundo Manuel (at the proposal of the University Platform for Feminist and Gender Studies), and the latest 2022 National Dance Prize winner, Ana Morales.
