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.