Flamenco like you've never seen before—Spanish National Dance Award-winner Manuel Liñán brings his all-male flamenco troupe back to Shanghai with Muerta de Amor, a fierce and emotionally raw dance-theater piece. It’s a full-throttle performance that blurs gender lines, cracks open the nature of love, and sets the stage on fire with vocals, clapping, and Copla-fueled rhythm.

Overview

Spanish choreographic treasure Manuel Liñán returns with his 2025 production Muerta de Amor, following the phenomenal success of ¡VIVA!. While ¡VIVA! celebrated freedom by subverting gender norms with seven male dancers in elegant dresses, Muerta de Amor offers a sharper dissection of the nature of love.

Premiering at the Bienal de Flamenco de Sevilla in 2024, the production draws on Liñán’s personal relationships. Using flamenco as a scalpel, he opens up our longing for emotional connection and intimacy. How does love begin? How does it fade? Each audience member may find their own answer.

Performed by twelve artists, the choreography blends diverse styles and features Spain’s traditional Copla music. Through an expressive fusion of singing and dance, the cast explores themes of desire, fantasy, and confrontation—emerging from deep emotional need and charged with raw vitality.

P.S. Fall in love, darling. You’ll dance better.

Highlights

“Flamenco at its finest!” Following the phenomenal success of ¡VIVA!, Manuel Liñán returns with a bold new flamenco masterpiece.

“Flamenco at its finest.” “Free, unbridled, and sincere—made my pulse race.” “So alive.”—Audience reviews

National Dance Award-winner and choreographic treasure Manuel Liñán brings his latest creation, Muerta de Amor, back to China. After the acclaim of ¡VIVA!, Liñán and his all-male ensemble return to the SIDCT stage, ready to set it ablaze.

This September, Muerta de Amor lands at the Shanghai International Dance Center Grand Theatre—get ready to rediscover the raw power of flamenco.

Liñán’s all-male ensemble goes full throttle, unleashing flamenco’s rebellious spirit in a powerful, anti-traditional revolution.

A soulful female vocalist meets the intensity of Liñán’s iconic male troupe, where masculine bodies channel deep emotion, dissolving gender lines and tearing apart flamenco’s traditional gender norms. The dancers sing, clap, and stamp, their rhythms layered with dramatic arrangements rooted in Spain’s Copla tradition, building an immersive and visceral soundscape.

Gone are the vintage dresses of ¡VIVA!—in Muerta de Amor, the dancers don dark, contemporary costumes. Framed by a stark pink-and-black set, they reconstruct the “language of love” through a fierce yet fluid physicality.

“When male dancers wear long skirts, the flying fabric reveals explosive strength—this is rebellion through grace, and grace through rebellion.”

“Footsteps like thunder, applause like waves—I felt my blood burn.”

—Audience reviews

Energy surges across the stage, with bold, clashing colors and razor-sharp visuals creating a brutal kind of beauty—one that tears down and revives all at once.

“Dancers dissolve the boundaries between life and art.”

“Liñán’s work pulses with vitality—free, wild, and deeply sincere. It made my heart race.”

—Audience reviews

In Muerta de Amor, Liñán draws on every chapter of his own romantic past to guide the audience through a raw exploration of our need for love and intimacy. How does love begin? How does it end? The answers belong to each of us.

With choreography that cuts straight to the bone, Muerta de Amor moves from a celebration of gender defiance to a ritual autopsy of love itself. Who becomes a martyr in the name of love? Love dies—so it may live forever.

Team

Direction: Manuel Liñán
Collaborating Director: Ernesto Artillo

Choreography: Manuel Liñán
Guest Choreographer: José Maldonado

Guest Artist: Mara Rey

Dancers:

• Manuel Liñán
• José Maldonado / Alberto Selles
• Juan Tomás de la Molia
• Miguel Heredia
• José Ángel Capel
• David Acero
• Ángel Reyes

Singers: Juan de la María
Guitarist: Francisco Vinuesa
Musician: Víctor Guadiana
Percussionist: Javier Teruel

Original Music: Francisco Vinuesa
Soundscape and Folklore: Víctor Guadiana
Musical Advisor: Javier Teruel

Costume Design: Ernesto Artillo
Set Design: Manuel Liñán · Ernesto Artillo · Gloria Montesinos
Set Construction: Readest Montajes
Lighting Design: Gloria Montesinos A.A.I.
Lighting Technician: J.M. Pitkänen
Sound Design: Ángel Olalla
Stage Machinery and Management: Octavio Romero
Production Assistant and Tour Manager: Inés García
Spiritual Guide: Iván Baba