Les Arts welcomes the Antonio Ruz Company with La noche de San Juan in its Dance Fridays

THE ARTS ARE DANCE

Les Arts welcomes the Antonio Ruz Company with La noche de San Juan in its Dance Fridays

• The Teatre Martín i Soler hosts this contemporary ballet inspired by an unpublished work from 1936 with music by Roberto Gerhard.
• At the end of the performance, the company will hold a meeting with the public in the same room until 9:30 p.m.

Valencia (May 21, 2025). The Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía welcomes the Antonio Ruz Company this Friday, May 22, with the show La noche de San Juan at the Teatre Martín i Soler at 7:30 p.m. in a new edition of the Friday Dance series.

With this work, Antonio Ruz recovers an unpublished ballet from 1936, with music by Roberto Gerhard, set design by Joan Junyer and a story by Ventura Gassol, whose premiere was cut short by the outbreak of the Civil War and the subsequent exile of all the creators who participated in its creation.

The result of meticulous work, the renowned choreographer reconstructs the dance piece from scores, sketches, and original materials preserved for decades, giving it a contemporary aesthetic. Ruz has also created a new choreography to replace Léonide Massine's original, of which no sketches survive.

“I felt that my mission was to draw inspiration from all that choreographic, musical and artistic material to create a work for today; to seek a coherent balance with the sources, but with a contemporary feel and aesthetic,” explains the choreographer.

In La noche de San Juan the action takes place during the eve and the shortest night of the year in a village in the Catalan Pyrenees, around the celebrations of the summer solstice, with torch dances, magical figures and a wedding ending at dawn.

“Ultimately, the piece isn’t about the event itself, but about the evocative power of fire; it’s a celebration of love. What we’ve all seen at some point in our lives is fire, and I’ve based my research on it to generate some of the choreographic material with the dancers,” Antonio Ruz points out.

At the end of the performance of La noche de San Juan at the Teatre Martín i Soler, the company will hold a meeting with the public in the same room.

Les Arts reminds you that tickets for the Friday Dance shows can be purchased through the different sales channels of the theater: box offices, the sales line 96 197 59 00 and its website .