In STEFFA, flamenco star Manuel Liñán takes on the role of Dutch dancer and ballet pedagogue Steffa Wine. Before and during the Second World War, Steffa Wine caused a furore as a flamenco dancer and toured throughout the Netherlands with her Spaansche Dansavonden (Spanish Dance-evenings) until 1944. This was not appreciated by everyone after the war. STEFFA is a re-enactment of her controversial performances that took place in the city theaters during WWII.
Manuel Liñán dances Steffa Wine's struggle with her past and ambition, and mirrors this to his own quest as a male dancer in the conservative flamenco world. Two excitingly divergent lives imaginatively intersect in this re-enactment.
‘Flamencostar Manuel Liñán takes on the role of Steffa Wine’
STEFFA is a kaleidoscopic performance in a setting of special archive material in an original soundscape by Salvador Breed and Kirsten Schötteldreier with live flamenco singing and guitar by María Marín and Francisco Vinuesa. Manuel Liñán is causing an international furore with his stimulating gender-transcending shows, in this performance he depicts the turbulent life of a striking skipper's daughter from Groningen. What makes one's identity? And in your desire for fame, how far will you go to shape yourself in a threatening environment? Manuel Liñán examines the unfolding of human identity on the basis of Steffa Wine's biography.
‘if she wanted, she just danced’
STEFFA is a co-production of the VET foundation, Flamenco Biennale Nederland and ITA.
Made possible by the Performing Arts Fund, BNG Fund and Fonds 21.
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International Furore
Manuel Liñán (1980) is an internationally acclaimed star, a virtuoso, engaging flamenco dancer and choreographer. In 2018, Liñán received the National Dance Prize from the Spanish Ministry of Culture. He grew up in Granada, Spain, in a socially conservative environment, where his performances as a female interpreter were by no means applauded. Liñán explores traditional gender roles in the flamenco world and organically reverses them in his successful shows. He is now seen as a trendsetter in new forms of flamenco dance. In his recent worldwide acclaimed work ¡VIVA! he takes his research into gender and identity in flamenco a step further. He is the ideal dancer for this performance.
About choreographer Susanne Marx
Susanne Marx is a choreographer, dance teacher and researcher. She studied at the School for New Dance Development of the Amsterdam School of the Arts and at Das Arts in Amsterdam. She produces theater and dance, often in collaboration with other theater makers and artists from other disciplines. She is a teacher and researcher at the Theater School Amsterdam and Artez, Arnhem. In 2019 to 2021 she created the dance project Gulliver, a children's revolution in collaboration with ICK and the Stadstheater ITA of Amsterdam. In 2015 she worked as a choreographer at the Deutsche Oper in Martin Butler's production Gianni. In 2011, Meisje Loos premiered at Julidans in Amsterdam and toured in Europe until 2013. Susanne Marx made a documentary about Steffa Wine in 1989 for the regional broadcaster SALTO. In the documentary, Wine dances in her studio and philosophizes -almost hallucinating- about her vision of flamenco.
“My fascination with Steffa Wine is about extremes. I am drawn to the strength and unambiguity of Steffa's beliefs, which leaves no room for doubt. Her authoritarian learning style, as I experienced it, is something I also find in myself and evokes attraction and repulsion. Wine was serious and had high hopes for dance. But she also broke resistance by belittling students. I still feel the soft tapping of the stick on my incorrectly swinging flamenco fingers."
- Susanne Marx
Direction and choreography Susanne Marx
dance and choreography Manuel Liñán
vocals María Marín
guitar Francisco Vinuesa
video design Helle Lyshøj
musical direction Kirsten Schötteldreier
costumes Sasja Strengholt
sound design Salvador Breed
repetiteur Candela Murillo
technique Martin Kaffarnik
advice Ernestina van de Noort and Peter van der Hoop
photography Marjon Broeks, Marcos G. Punto
