A BODY IS

Antonio José Martínez Palacios was going to be the biggest Spanish musician of the 20th Century. Unfortunately, he was incarcerated and executed without a trial at the age of 33, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, with an unfinished vast body of work.
He used to say “Contemporary art is not better nor worse than any previous art. It’s the one we need.” So with Marco Flores Dance Company I’ve tried to pay him tribute revisiting and rethinking his music.

Credits / Collaborators / Cast

Director: Jaime Dezcallar
Choreographer: Marco Flores
Produced by: Miquel Santín, Jaime Dezcallar, Iván Smith
Dancers: Marco Flores, Marina Paje, Jesús Hinojosa, Alejandra de Castro, Almudena Roca, David Acero
Original Music by Tagore González based on ¡Ay, amante mío! by Antonio José
DoP: Enrique Millán Fuentes-Guerra
Movi: Diego Comendador
1st AC: Antonio Albalate
2nd AC: Fernando Mendoza
G&E: Jimmy Serratosa, Hector S. Aguado, Jorge Quilez
Costume Design: Sabrina Lázaro
Art Direction: Rami Arda, Ali Sánchez
Hair&Make Up: Miriam Collar
Sound Recording: Raúl Valdés
Editing: Enrique Millán & Jaime Dezcallar
Credits: Guille Guerrero
Color: Dani Aránega (Gradepunk)
Sound mixing: Tomás Virgós Navarro (Reseda Media)
1st AD: Fran Agulló
Production: David Oeo, Pablo Pou
Camera: Lenso Films
Light: Gecisa & La Via Nivel
Transports: Arizmendi
Production materials: The Client
Catering: JBFood
LA COSTA & Compañía Marco Flores

The story behind the film

Musician Antonio José Martínez Palacios had been silenced for over 80 years. Since he was killed at the beginning of the Spanish Civil war, his music had been forbidden for years and only recently it has been brought back to study.
When Marco Flores (the dancer-choreographer) told me about this I became immediately interested in his work, and we chose “¡Ay, amante mío!” to work on.
Being in the middle of the pandemic lockdown, and having a very very tight budget we needed to be wise about where to put the money we had.
I normally work on advertisement so I had my crew, providers and regulars that I could count on.
We wanted to honor the principles by which Antonio José worked, so we wanted to do something that was modern, elegant, and vibrant.
We just needed the idea that would match the original music (and its lyrics) to film and dance. We wanted to show how traditional Spanish and flamenco can also be extremely edgy the same way Antonio José used to modernize folkloric music to make new music.
Tagore Gonzalez was in charge of taking the original music sheet to the 21st Century.
Directing and editing I tried to be as specific as I could. I needed to try to make sense of a choreography and find the hidden story within.

FILM DETAILS

Genre: Dance
Country: Spain
Language: English
Length in minutes: 4
YEAR: 2021