Mariana Pineda

Those who oppose a totalitarian system often put their lives at risk. Nevertheless, many people around the world are fighting for their freedom, many women for their right to equality, like the women who are currently taking to the streets in Afghanistan or Iran.

One of these women was Mariana Pineda, who became a freedom fighter in 1831 in Granada as a teenager: she rebelled against the Spanish king Fernando VII and died a martyr. Federico García Lorca – himself a convinced socialist and opponent of Franco's regime – created a literary monument to Mariana Pineda a good 100 years later with a "popular romance" named after her.

Mariana Pineda helps her lover, a revolutionary, escape from prison. She embroiders a red flag with the inscription "Law-Freedom-Equality” for the insurgents. Soon she is harassed by Judge Pedrosa – judicially and sexually – and sentenced to death.

The political poet and playwright Federico García Lorca met a similar fate as his title heroine: he was killed by Franco's henchmen in 1936, and his plays were completely banned from Spanish stages until Franco's death in 1975.

Inspired by Lorca's text, the collective XXTanzTheater, choreographed by Bibiana Jiménez, develops a surreal dance theatre piece that describes Mariana Pineda's love story and adventures, lets us look deep into the soul of the title heroine and connects the story with current socio-political developments. A composition by Valerij Lisac, who is known throughout Germany for his performative and intermedial concert and operatic forms, is being created especially for this.

The independent Cologne dance ensemble XXTanzTheater received the funding to realise the next world premiere as a co-production with Oper Köln. The ensemble thereby prevailed in a selection round against nine competitors who had applied in response to the joint call for applications by the Cultural Office of the City of Cologne and Oper Köln in order to be able to produce on a larger scale than under the usual conditions of the independent scene. The existing tradition of a joint call for proposals by the Opera and the Cultural Office will be continued every two years under the directorship of Hein Mulders at Oper Köln.