S Y N O P S I S

The temple of Bacchus was the setting for the Caracalla Dance Theatre’s opening of Andalusia, the Lost Glory. The curtain rose to the voice of Tariq Bin Ziyad, famed Umayyad commander who, after landing in Gibraltar, burned his ships and announced to his troops: “Behind you is the sea, before you, the enemy.” This cry initiated the conquest of Spain by the Arabs.

The story continues with four emirs and their heirs whose rule spawned the Golden Age of Arabia, wherein flourished philosophy, art, architecture, poetry, literature, and sciences. But corruption soon came knocking at their palace doors, and rebellion sharpened its claws. One by one the emirs fell, leaving the last Sultan - Abu Abdallah Muhammad XII - to surrender Granada to Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain in 1492. As Abdallah looked back in shame at Granada, his mother scorned him with the famous words, “You weep like a woman for a kingdom you could not defend as a man.”