'It all started three years ago. Everything was quite difficult and I didn’t know what to do. One day I listened to Ravel’s Boléro. Boléro is like an impulse, always forward. I went with it. Music and dance often save you from loneliness. First I did a fifteen minutes duet. Now I am here, with twelve dancers.' Jesús Rubio Gamo

Dance gives hope to the body. Music transforms time in something better. GRAN BOLERO is body and time. It is also a place where six dancers from Madrid and six from Barcelona can meet to devote themselves to movement and revisit a musical score composed by Ravel in 1928 as an orchestral transcription of a traditional Spanish dance. GRAN BOLERO is a great opportunity to remember that there was a day when we decided that dance and music would save us from everything else.

Coproduced by the two most important dance houses in Spain, Madrilenian Teatros del Canal and Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona, GRAN BOLERO brings us into a new dimension of Ravel’s famous composition. It is a work about the effort and pleasure of resistance; an obstinate choreography about the fine line separating enjoyment and exhaustion, a dance to celebrate the time and space we share. GRAN BOLERO was awarded with the MAX Prize (Spanish national prize for performing arts) as Best Dance Production in 2020.

Jesús Rubio Gamo (Madrid, 1982) is an independent dancer and choreographer based in Madrid. After studying ballet, contemporary dance, theatre and literature, Jesús was awarded with a MAE-AECI grant to develop dance studies in a foreign country. He moved to London where he completed an MA in choreography at London Contemporary Dance School (Distinction). His work has been presented at Festivals such as Chantiers d’Europe (Théâtre de la Ville-Paris), Dancenet Sweeden, The Greenwich and Docklands International Festival (London), FAEL (Lima), Les Plateaux (La Briquetterie-Paris), Birmingham International Dance Festival, ARC for Dance (Athens), International Theatre Amsterdam, Hay Festival or Romaeuropa Festival. Jesús was selected two years in a row (2017 and 2018) by the Platform Aerowaves as one of the most relevant 20 young choreographers in Europe.

In 2020 the Spanish National Radio awards him the Prize el OJO CRÍTICO in dance. The jury highlighted “his artisanal approach to dance composition shown in intimate projects as well as in the orchestration of big ensembles in which he manages to balance the choreographic structure with the individuality of his performers.”