{"id":536360,"date":"2026-07-06T21:13:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T21:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/536360\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T21:13:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T21:13:24","slug":"rosalia-the-shape-shifter-her-technique-might-not-be-perfect-but-the-intention-is-good-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/536360\/","title":{"rendered":"Rosal\u00eda the shape shifter: Her technique might not be perfect, but the intention is good \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

When pointe shoes appear in mainstream culture, dancers tend to cringe.<\/p>\n

Pointe shoes, ballet\u2019s emblematic footwear, routinely bewitch fashion editors, advertising executives and pop musicians. Dance outsiders are often eager to use them as shorthand for a certain kind of delicate femininity.<\/p>\n

But a pointe shoe is not (just) a symbol: it is a tool of art. To dance on pointe correctly requires years of intensive training. It is essentially impossible to fake. For dancers, substandard pointe work can be painful to watch \u2013 not only an aesthetic affront but also an insult to the rigours of their craft.<\/p>\n

So when the singer Rosal\u00eda<\/a> opens a recent stop at Madison Square Garden, in New York, during her Lux tour dressed as a ballerina \u2013 standing demurely atop a platform, wearing an enormous Degas-esque tutu and, yes, pointe shoes \u2013 I hold my breath.<\/p>\n

And then, once she begins moving, comes the exhale of relief.<\/p>\n

Nobody would confuse the Spanish singer with a professional ballet dancer. Yet in the Lux show she approaches ballet with what seems like genuine interest and reverence.<\/p>\n

\"LuxLux tour: Rosal\u00eda begins her show on pointe. Photograph: The New York Times <\/p>\n

While singing the piercing Porcelana, she steps into a clean partnered arabesque on pointe, her supporting foot impressively arched. A few moments later, as she bourrees towards the back of the stage, taking tiny pinprick steps on the tips of her toes, her arms are convincingly swanlike \u2013 fluid yet articulate through the wrists and fingers. Ballet is not a pose; it\u2019s a language, and Rosal\u00eda has clearly been studying it.<\/p>\n

A similar mix of curiosity and devotion drives her Lux album<\/a>. Rosal\u00eda, who began in flamenco, has built a pop-music career around unexpected stylistic juxtapositions. On Lux she incorporates elements of opera and sings in 13 languages. On the tour she presents classical ballet as a physical analogue of classical opera. Her dancing is balletic in the same way her music is operatic: the technique might not be perfect, but the intention is good.<\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s why the American ballerina Misty Copeland posted the mind-blown emoji after attending the concert at Madison Square Garden. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Lux, Rosal\u00eda\u2019s new album, is a breathtaking odyssey into music\u2019s further reachesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

According to (La)Horde, a choreographic trio that helped create the Lux tour\u2019s movement, the show\u2019s ballet sequences were Rosal\u00eda\u2019s idea. (I talked to Marine Brutti, but the collective, which also includes Jonathan Debrouwer and Arthur Harel, speaks as one.) <\/p>\n

Though (La)Horde\u2019s members are the directors of the Ballet National de Marseille<\/a>, in France, \u201cI don\u2019t know that we would have ever advised her to go that way,\u201d they say. \u201cShe had a vision of starting the show as a ballerina, and we trusted it. We were like the magician\u2019s assistants.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LuxLux tour: Rosal\u00eda aims for \u2018museum meets church meets club meets dance theatre\u2019. Photograph: The New York Times <\/p>\n

Part of the tour\u2019s magic is its easy commingling of ballet and other dance styles. The choreography team is led by (La)Horde and Charm La\u2019Donna, the powerhouse behind Bad Bunny and Kendrick Lamar\u2019s Super Bowl performances. Dimitris Papaioannou, a Greek choreographer known for intriguing visual illusions, and the renowned flamenco dancer Jos\u00e9 Maya also made contributions.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe wanted to offer an experience that was like museum-meets-church-meets-club-meets-dance theatre,\u201d (La)Horde says of Rosal\u00eda. \u201cWe were all responding to the fluidity of her thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lux tour is presented, with theatrical flourish, in four acts. After the celestial classicism of the opening, the second section begins with a descent into the darker grandeur of the album\u2019s lead single, Berghain, named for the famous club in Berlin. Rosal\u00eda returns to the stage having traded her pointe shoes for black boots, two hornlike feathers curling above her head.<\/p>\n

(La)Horde\u2019s fingerprints are most clearly visible here. True to its name, the collective loves to deploy a riotous crowd. In its Berghain choreography, some of which derives from Rosal\u00eda\u2019s viral Brit Awards performance this year, a primordial ooze of dancer bodies supports the singer, pulsing in response to her every gesture. <\/p>\n

Orchestral strings propel Berghain, but the tour adds a screaming electronic remix to the end of the song. By its conclusion, the jewel-box ballerina has gone full club kid, convulsing ecstatically under the strobe lights.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0You don\u2019t have to understand every word of artists such as Rosal\u00eda and Gwenno to love themOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Despite its heaven-and-hell iconography, the show isn\u2019t all epic highs and lows. It also incorporates portions of Rosal\u00eda\u2019s 2022 album, Motomami, a collection of brash, irreverent songs that take a more playful approach to stylistic cross-pollination. As she performs the reggaeton banger Saoko, Rosal\u00eda drops easily into pop-siren mode, her spine liquid as she rolls through her torso. <\/p>\n

The song features an improbable jazz break; just as improbably, she twerks along to it, with a camera coming in for a close-up of her hot-pink shorts.<\/p>\n

That cheekiness extends into Lux territory, too.<\/p>\n

Papaioannou\u2019s offering to the show is the set piece La Perla, which turns the Lux waltz \u2013 a breezy kiss-off to an ex-lover \u2013 into a charming trompe l\u2019oeil spectacle. Against a black backdrop, the white-gloved hands of dancers become Rosal\u00eda\u2019s skirt, then a halo, then a veil, evoking the Venus de Milo one moment and Rita Hayworth the next. Unsurprisingly, the number has done numbers on TikTok.<\/p>\n

\"LuxLux tour: \u2018It does not feel like a group of backup dancers,\u2019 (La)Horde say. \u2018It feels like a dance company of its own.\u2019 Photograph: The New York Times <\/p>\n

Rosal\u00eda, who is from Catalonia, began her career studying flamenco dance as well as flamenco music, training that is legible throughout the show. (It might explain those impressive swan arms, distant cousins of flamenco\u2019s expressive upper-body movements.) <\/p>\n

In the flamenco-pop song De Madruga, her percussive footwork and filigreed twirls of the wrist spur cries of \u201col\u00e9!\u201d from the crowd. La Rumba del Perd\u00f3n, the Lux track that hews closest to classical flamenco, isn\u2019t a dance number here, but as its rhythmic clapping kicks in, Rosal\u00eda can\u2019t help but snap and stomp along.<\/p>\n

That flamenco training also gives her a comfort in her body, a base to build from when trying other dance styles. She is supported in that effort by the show\u2019s cast of pedigreed, fantastically versatile dancers. While performing on pointe, Rosal\u00eda is partnered by alums of Ballet National de Marseille and Nederlands Dans Theater<\/a>. And when she winds and grinds, she does it alongside veterans of high-profile arena tours and music videos. (Sometimes they\u2019re the same people.)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does not feel like a group of backup dancers,\u201d (La)Horde say. \u201cIt feels like a dance company of its own.\u201d<\/p>\n

The final act of the tour returns to the heavens, and to ballet \u2013 though less in its choreography than via a collage of visual references. Rosal\u00eda and the dancers emerge in white feathered wings that put them somewhere between Swan Lake cygnets and Victoria\u2019s Secret angels. <\/p>\n

At the conclusion of the song Focu \u2019Ranni, the singer ascends a staircase at the back of the stage and falls backwards, wing-arms extended, into Swan Queen oblivion. You can imagine her quoting Natalie Portman\u2019s character in the film Black Swan<\/a> upon landing: \u201cIt was perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the ballet world, a Black Swan reference can also be cringey territory. But here \u2013 with Rosal\u00eda barefoot and spent, her wings slightly bedraggled by her exertions \u2013 the moment reads as a tribute to effort.<\/p>\n

Some artists are attracted to ballet\u2019s inherent impossibility. The labour of chasing the form\u2019s unattainable ideals becomes its own reward. Rosal\u00eda, the diligent student of a dozen-odd languages and nearly as many dance styles, appears similarly drawn to impossible tasks. The Lux tour, with all its choreographic ambition, is a celebration of that kind of difficulty \u2013 of virtuosity not born but paid for in sweat. \u2013 This article originally appeared in The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When pointe shoes appear in mainstream culture, dancers tend to cringe. Pointe shoes, ballet\u2019s emblematic footwear, routinely bewitch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,83588],"class_list":["post-536360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-rosalia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}