Show “Dance and Guitar”
On Friday, 11 April, from 8:00 PM, the L’Olivier Bookstore will transform into the stage for a unique performance where the art of photography meets the power of live flamenco.
In dialogue with the iconic images from the Balada Flamenca exhibition by Jean-Louis Duzert, dancer Antonio Perujo and guitarist Manuel Castan bring each moment captured by the photographer to life.
Through a vibrant exchange between dance and guitar, these artists pay tribute to the great figures of flamenco immortalized by Duzert. This performance invites you to feel the soul of flamenco in its fullest depth: an art where every movement and every note tells a story, a fleeting moment of truth.
Technical details
Antonio Perujo, born in Lausanne, is a Swiss dancer and choreographer specializing in flamenco. He began his training in flamenco and classical Spanish dance at a young age before dedicating himself entirely to flamenco. He opened a Flamenco Dance Academy in Lausanne and Geneva, where he trained many dancers and created several acclaimed productions, including Minotauro, Passion Flamenca, and Sigue mi Compás.
In 2004, he focused on founding the International Flamenco Festival of Geneva. Today, he runs his flamenco studio in Bern and teaches across Switzerland and Europe. He is the only one in Switzerland to teach all the disciplines of flamenco dance. Antonio Perujo has also created a trilogy of productions titled Negro, Rojo, and Blanco, which explore different dimensions of this art form. He is currently dedicating himself to organizing a new event, the Berner Flamenco Festival, in Bern.
Manuel Castan is a versatile guitarist who has performed in various musical styles, including Irish, gypsy, Argentine tango, and Latin American folk music, but his main passion has always been flamenco. As a child, he discovered flamenco while listening to a Paco de Lucía record with his Spanish-born mother, sparking a lifelong love for the art. He began studying flamenco guitar with Ricardo Salinas in Avignon, earned a diploma from the Flamenco Conservatory in Barcelona, and received guidance from renowned maestros such as Pedro Sierra, Niño de Pura, Eduardo Rebollar, and Paco Cortés at the Cristina Heeren Flamenco Foundation in Seville.
Manuel spent three years in Jerez de la Frontera, Andalusia, where he honed his skills in accompanying flamenco singing and dancing alongside artists like Manuela Carpio, La Rubia de Jerez, La Chiqui, and Ana María López. In 2014, he returned to Geneva and performed in several productions with the companies “La Cueva Flamenca” and “Ensueños” by Rebeca Castilla.
