Rocio Molina

Rocío Molina Cruz, born in Málaga in 1984, is a flamenco dancer, choreographer, and artistic director who has renewed flamenco from within its own technique. She began dancing at three and showed early choreographic ambition, sketching works by age seven. At seventeen she graduated with honors from Madrid's Royal Dance Conservatory and entered professional companies that toured internationally, performing alongside major flamenco figures including María Pagés, Miguel Poveda, Antonio Canales, and Israel Galván.

Molina's first premiere came at twenty-two with *Entre paredes*, followed by works including *El Eterno Retorno*, *Turquesa como el limón*, *Oro viejo*, *Cuando las piedras vuelen*, and *Vinática*. From the outset, these pieces treated flamenco as a living system open to theatrical experiment rather than a fixed vocabulary. In 2010, Spain's Ministry of Culture awarded her the National Dance Award, recognizing her renewal of flamenco and her range and force as a performer. Beginning in 2014, her association with Chaillot–Théâtre National de la Danse in Paris provided institutional support for larger works and international circulation.

Her 2016 work *Caída del Cielo* placed traditional flamenco resources in dialogue with electric guitar, percussion, and theatrical imagery, exploring an explicitly female journey. Molina shared choreographic and musical direction with Carlos Marquerie and Eduardo Trassierra, a collaborative model that became central to her practice. In 2018, *Grito Pelao*, created with singer Sílvia Pérez Cruz and director Carlos Marquerie, premiered at the Festival d'Avignon, integrating personal themes of desire, maternity, memory, and embodied identity into its choreographic structure.

Molina subsequently developed the *Trilogía sobre la guitarra*—*Inicio (Uno)*, *Al fondo riela*, and *Vuelta a Uno*—treating dancer and guitarist as reciprocal agents rather than soloist and accompaniment. In 2022, La Biennale di Venezia awarded her the Silver Lion for Dance and presented the world premiere of *Carnación*, which she created with original idea, choreography, and shared scenic direction alongside Niño de Elche, Pepe Benítez, Maureen Choi, Olalla Alemán, and other documented collaborators. The award recognized a body of work combining flamenco technique, contemporary research, and conceptual risk.