‘El cante rasgueado’ is part of a larger project commissioned by BoCA for Niño de Elche – an exceptional figure in the Spanish musical and performative scene – and visual artist and researcher Pedro G. Romero. 

This commission gave rise to two formats, echoing the same proposal: a lecture-performance with Pedro G. Romero, and a concert featuring Niño de Elche and folk/traditional musicians from the Iberian borderland. 

Along the borderland that separates – or unites – southern Portugal, Huelva, and Extremadura, sound operates as a link between geographies and histories. Here one hears the ‘cante alentejano’ with its ‘violas campaniças’, the ‘fandango cané’ of Alosno sung by groups of men over the relentless strumming of guitars, as well as the Portuguese-Extremaduran ‘tangos’ and ‘jaleos’ carried by Roma communities. 

It is within this porous territory that Niño de Elche and Pedro G. Romero have developed this performative concert, drawing on field research conducted alongside local musicians and historians. 

Throughout a period of research and creation in the Iberian borderlands between Portugal and Spain, Pedro G. Romero and Niño de Elche sought to activate collaborative practices that challenge crystallised forms of tradition, exposing their friction with the present. 

More than collecting or documenting, this project is a gesture of reinvention: mapping the lines of continuity and friction among popular expressions that coexist along the Iberian border, opening space for new forms of listening, appropriation, and encounter. In this context, to sing or to strum is not merely a technical or expressive act – it is a collective gesture, a way of being with others. 

From this premise, Niño de Elche and Pedro G. Romero reactivate the communal potential of popular culture, rejecting folkloric or fixed readings, and present a unique concert in collaboration with musicians who challenge rigid forms of tradition, exposing their friction with the present.

Niño de Elche

Niño de Elche (Elche, Spain, 1985) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice crosses music, poetry, performance, dance and theatre. Trained in flamenco singing, he abandoned the conventions of the genre to explore experimental territories, blending flamenco with free improvisation, krautrock, electronic and electroacoustic music. His most recent album, 'La exclusión', is the result of a collaboration with thinker Ramón Andrés. In 2017, he took part in Documenta 14 (Kassel and Athens) with 'La farsa monea', in collaboration with Galván and Pedro G. Romero.

Pedro G. Romero

Pedro G. Romero (Aracena, Spain, 1964) is an artist, curator and essayist. With a practice that crosses visual arts, critical thought, archiving and performance, his work has played a decisive role in the renewal of contemporary languages in both the Iberian and international contexts. In 2024, he was awarded Spain’s National Prize for the Visual Arts. He has presented work in renowned exhibitions such as Documenta14 (Kassel/Athens, 2017) and Venice Architecture Biennale (2023). The Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid) dedicated a retrospective to him in 2022 ('Máquinas de Trovar').