To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
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Feminist steps out of flamenco shadow
Extraordinary: Compania Rafaela Carrasco
[Beatriz Monclar]
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
Born a Shadow
Sadler's Wells, London
SHADOWS always have potential, since they encompass the light that creates them, and thus it proves with this extraordinary evening of flamenco by Compania Rafaela Carrasco.
Part of the Sadler's Wells flamenco festival, it's a meditation on women's power and it celebrates the heritage of classic Spanish writers of the 16th and 17th centuries — Saint Teresa de Jesus, Maria de Zayas, Maria Calderon and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz — via four imaginary letters.
From them we learn of the sacrifices and concessions these women made in their struggle to write their way to freedom, about their loves and losses and their understanding of womanhood, both their own and that of their future metaphorical daughters.
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