The apotheosis of Rocío Molina's heelwork

You have to warm up before you start. And if you're warming up, you'd better keep warming up because if you stop, you'll have to start all over again. And that's always difficult. So says the flamenco dancer Rocío Molina, and that's why, while the audience sits in their seats and chats away, she exercises on a mat in the middle of the empty stage. And that's why, after two hours of a high-heeled spectacle, after the greeting from the rest of the company and a resounding applause with the entire audience on their feet and reluctant to leave, she will continue tapping her heels while the music plays.Achilipú by Dolores Vargas, La Terremoto.

There is, therefore, in this thrilling show, a kind of caution about the future and a celebration of the party. Heelwork while talking to herself and to the audience. About the body, about the legs, about breathing, about sweat, about exhaustion. It's only 35 minutes of warm-up.

What a way to start the show! In the most traditional flamenco, the challenge of heelwork is speed, not duration, but Rocío Molina isn't about tradition. Flamenco roots with contemporary influences, with an open mind and a boundless imagination that the Argentine playwright Pablo Messiez has skillfully shaped and modulated to avoid unnecessary repetition.

But warming up isn't just about exercise. You can get fired up in a duet with a metal chair. You can ignite a gaze with a man sitting in front of you. You can rouse those who have spent the performance inside a methacrylate cube singing Jurado and dancing to come out and participate in a kind of radish Flamenco, capped off with a number where La Molina taps her heels under a pyramid of chairs, emulating the Roscón Poltrona.

Keep tapping your heels even when death comes for you and you tell it you haven't packed your bags and that you still have a lot of dancing left. Just in case, of course, it's best not to stop warming up, to keep tapping your heels.