ÂTMAN, EL COMIAT

Ananda Dansa, the longest-running Valencian contemporary dance company and the one that has received the greatest recognition throughout its career, has decided to bring its artistic life to an end. And what better farewell for a committed and progressive company than to reflect in its final production on death while, at the same time, celebrating a hymn to life? From darkness to light.

Death is that of the women who each year lose their lives at the hands of their partners, before the terrified and helpless eyes of their own children, the worst possible witnesses. Boys and girls who are also turned into victims. Children who, when they have not been killed alongside their mothers, will have to live with that trauma.

Life is that of the women and children who have managed to escape violence, and who will have to make a great effort to overcome the memories. Because the physical marks of abuse may eventually fade over time, but the marks on the soul are far more difficult to erase.

And here we all are, ready to lend them a hand. And together to overcome, to learn to overcome, difficulties and try to rise above them in order to be free and begin again. To be capable of creating a small sense of optimism and helping it grow; to recover, even if it seems impossible, the joy of living. Of being alive.

To wish for peace and love, for calm. To consider a change of life, looking to the future with hope. Deciding what we let go of, which part of our lives we renounce. How we can push away from ourselves — from ourselves — fear and anger, how to dispel the darkness of painful memories. And that is something we can only do when we are able to name what has happened to us.

Ananda Dansa has built this tribute on traditional Valencian music filtered through a contemporary lens, and supported by poems by Vicent Andrés Estellés and our cant d’estil. We also wanted it to be a tribute to the city where we were artistically born, which has seen us grow and develop, and from which we now bid farewell: Valencia.