On December 5, at New York’s Joyce Theater, the highly acclaimed Ballet Hispánico premiered a choreography by Ramón Oller which delves into the life of the great blind Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo who drew on his inner vision – the eyes of the soul,- to create a rich and very personal musical landscape.

In honor of Maestro Rodrigo on the centennial celebration of his birth, Oller and the Ballet Hispánico use dance to reflect the arduous path of this creative spirit. The score uses excerpts from some of Rodrigo’s best known compositions to illustrate different facets of the composer’s life.

The ballet’s central figure, blind to the external world around him, finds courage and support in a devoted partner, Rodrigo’s wife, Victoria Kamhi. The emotions of longing and despair, joy and fulfillment are portrayed in a series of vignettes. The theme of hardship surmounted and the time honored motif of the alienation of the artist are explored, and one suspects that the occasional despair has more to do with creative torment than blindness.

The figure of Rodrigo weaves in and out of his own music, represented by the dancers. As a modern-dance choreographer, Ramón Oller favors a highly physical style of partnering derived from contact improvisation. Exuberant dynamics color the opening, to the music of the Allegro, first movement of "Concierto de Aranjuez", and full of ballet jetés and fouettés on bare feet. The guitar music of the concerto’s Adagio introduces the two central figures in an extraordinary duet on a chair, where each one takes turns doing handstands on the other’s lap.

A bouncy gymnastic duet danced to the second movement of "Concierto en Modo Galante" leads dramatically into the courtly first section of the "Fantasía para un gentilhombre" and a solo in which Rodrigo finds himself as man and artist.

After two weeks in New York, "The eyes of the soul" will tour several cities in the US and is scheduled to appear in Barcelona as part of the Rodrigo Centenary celebration.

"The eyes of the soul" received an outstanding and excellent review in the New York Times Arts Section on December 7,. 2000.