In Lorca's concept of duende, at least four elements can be isolated:
(1) irrationality, (2) earthiness, (3) a heightened awareness of death, and (4) a dash of the diabolical. Duende is an earth spirit that helps the artist see the limitations of intelligence, and brings the artist face-to-face with death, and assists him to create and communicate memorable, spine-chilling art. Duende seizes no
t only the performer but also the audience. It creates conditions where art can be understood spontaneously with little conscious effort. It is, in Lorca's words, "a sort of corkscrew that can infuse art into the sensibility of an audience. It is the most dynamic gift that can be offered to the "intellectual." A performance infused with duende dilates the mind's eye, so that the intensity becomes almost unendurable. There is a quality of reality so heightened and exaggerated that it becomes unreal. According to Lorca duende is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought. Drawing on Federico Garcia Lorca's concept of “Duende” (an ancestral energy that is dark and appealing and that is able to elevate the common to the magical) our company will produce new and established, classic and contemporary plays infused with a “Primitive Grace”, in order to elevate the audience's consciousness so they will experience their reality in a new, profound life altering way.
