Pastora Galván

NAME: Pastora Galván de los Reyes, Pastora Galván

PLACE OF BIRTH: Seville, 1980

FAMILY: José Galván’s daughter. Pastora has in her blood the traditional nature of her family’s dance and the modernity of her brother’s dance, a genius at the most plausible forefront of flamenco.

STUDIES: She studied Spanish Dance in the Seville Conservatory between 1990 and 1998.

CAREER: She is a very famous dancer who has combined her career in the Seville Conservatory with her first professional works. In 1995, at the age of 15, she travelled for the first time to the United States with the Company of Flamenco Theatre in San Francisco. The following year she taught lessons in Stanford University and performed in France with Israel Galván’s Company. Since then, she has been teaching and performing around the world with different companies and as a soloist dancer.

She has brought her dance to the main theatres and Spanish tablaos in several cities of Europe, Japan, United States, Middle East, Cuba…and, of course, the most important flamenco and dance festivals.

The Flamenco Bienal of Seville deserves special attention for hosting the dance of Pastora in every edition since 1998, when she participated in the play Mira/Los zapatos rojos by Israel Galván. The collaboration with her brother continued in La Metamorfosis (2000), Galvánicas (2002), with the guitarist Gerardo Núñez in Dos Hermanos (2004). Despite the fact that the last one was not released in the festival, that year Pastora participated in several shows, one of them with the singer Chano Lobato.

The Bienal of 2006 was the biggest challenge of her career: the 16th September she released La Francesa, a show in which she is the main dancer, performing 5 choreographies created by Israel Galván specially for her, under the artistic direction of Pedro G. Romero. La Francesa was brought to the most important stages such as Andalucía Flamenca Festival in Madrid, organized by the Andalusian Agency for the Development of Flamenco, Jerez Festival, International Festival of Granada and the Montpellier Dance. It was very successful: the audience and the critic acclaimed the play. When Pastora came back to Seville with La Francesa in 2008 to Joaquín Turina’s hall, the audience was impressed.

In the last edition of 2008, she performed with Israel Galván as guest artists in the show Tres movimientos by Pedro Sierra. That year she participated along with Carmen Linares, Miguel Poveda and the guitarist Juan Carlos Romero in Cuatro Esquinas, a play created for the Flamenco Festival, which was released in several cities of the United States. She conquered new territories with her Cuadro Flamenco which she brought to the Spring Festival in El Cairo and Beirut.

Throughout her career she has worked with great artists such as Eva Yerbabuena, Fernando Terremoto, La Susi, Niño de Pura, María Pagés, José Luis Rodríguez, Arcángel, Joaquín Grilo, La Tobala, Pedro Sierra… Stand out her collaborations with Carmen Linares in La Diosa Blanca, a show performed only by women and Las mujeres en el flamenco, both in 2005; and Los Grandes (2007), in which Antonio Canales gathered the best young flamenco artists.

She collaborated with the pianist and composer David Peña Dorantes in the show Piano Flamenco.

Her lively spirit and that energy has brought her to new projects and artistic adventures like her last works: a solo for the Flamenc Empiric Festival in El Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona and her new work Pastora, released in Jerez Festival in 2009, in which tradition and avant-garde are mixed naturally.

In 2013, she participated along with Paloma Fantova and Karime Amaya as main dancers (the three of them) in the show honouring Carmen Amaya, Con Carmen Amaya en la Memoria, produced by the Foundation Tablao Cordobes and the Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias del Flamenco, performing in the Spanish main cities and also in other European countries.

FESTIVALS: Mont-de-Marsans in 2000; Montellano in 2002; Festival del Corral del Carbón in Granada in 2003; Alburquerque, Argeles-sur-Mer and Monterrey (Mexico) in 2004; Festival Flamenco in the Sun, Miami, in 2005; Festival de Jerez in 2006, Andalucía Flamenca (Madrid), Málaga en Flamenco, Montpellier Danse and the Festival Internacional de Granada in 2007; Flamenco Festival (USA) and Bienal de Flamenco in Netherlands in 2008; Spring Festival in El Cairo and Beirut (2008). Nîmes and Jeréz in 2009. Flamenc Empiric in El Mercat de les Flors and Festival de Jerez (2009). Festival Flamenco – 39ª edition of the Festival Moguer (2013).

She participated in every edition of the Bienal de Flamenco in Sevilla since 1998.

AWARDS: Matilde Cora’ in the XVI National Contest of Flamenco Art in Córdoba in 2001. Giraldillos 2006 (La Francesa) Bienal de Flamenco. Giraldillos 2010 (Show Pastora Sevilla) in Bienal de Flamenco.