Paco Peña: Flamenco from our elders

Available for over a year

Paco Peña, regarded as one of the world's foremost traditional flamenco players, is coming back to Sadler's Wells Theatre in London with Solera, his new flamenco show, devised in collaboration with long-time friend and theatre director Jude Kelly. Their work aims to showcase the raw talent of young artists, tempered by the understated authority of an older, wiser generation. Solera, the title of this production, refers to the solera process of ageing liquids such as wine. Andalucía, in Southern Spain, where Paco was born, has for generations produced fine wines using a method that stacks oak barrels in several layers. Young wine enters the highest barrel and given time flows down, nurturing its best qualities, until what remains is a delicious wine that can only be achieved with age. The mature solera of the older generations enriches and refines the best qualities handed down to the young. Flamenco is not a written tradition, but one handed down from one generation to the next, constantly striving to find different ways to express; the best of performances will incorporate part of what has been created before by the great practitioners of the past. Presenter/Producer: Mohini Patel Executive Produced by Rebecca Armstrong for the BBC World Service