"Flamenco connects us with our wildest, most vulnerable, more powerful selves. For me it feels like freedom."

Lucia Campillo is a flamenco-dancing sensation from Murcia, southeastern Spain, and her unique style has hypnotized audiences worldwide.

Speaking at the Teatro Real, the Royal Opera of Madrid in the Spanish capital, she tells CGTN about touring China as part of cultural exchanges between the two nations.

"Dancing in China is amazing because the theaters are enormous and they're always packed," Campillo says. "The audiences there are fascinated by flamenco, they become instant aficionados."

Tonight she's dancing with So-La-Na, the flamenco dance company which gets standing ovations from Shanghai to Madrid.

She's performing in the opulent setting of the Teatro Real Ballroom, where royal dances once took place, renovated with a starry ceiling created with 630 fiber-optic installations, an ode to the Madrid night sky.

"At the end of the show people wait outside the performer's door to meet us, there's a bond created despite the short time we spend together," continues Campillo.

"There's a real communion between the two cultures and I love being part of it."

The Teatro Real can be found in an iconic building in the center of Madrid. It's a 200-year-old haven of Spanish heritage facing directly towards the royal palace – and these days it increasingly feels like home for Chinese artists too.

Artists like soprano Hé Huì have brought Chinese opera voices to Spanish audiences.

It's part of an award-winning cultural collaboration. For a decade of bridge-building, the theater's director Ignacio Garcia Belenguer collected a prize from Catedra China, a Spanish NGO dedicated to Sino-Hispanic understanding.

"We might have different mother tongues, but when it comes to music, we all speak the same language," Director Ignacio Garcia Belenguer tells CGTN.

"Everything we have done in China has been successful," he continues, smiling. "For example, Opera Week and Opera in Cinema, an entire week where Chinese cinemas are dedicated to Teatro Real, broadcasting our operas. 

"Then there are the different projects of exchange of musicians between our orchestra and the National Chinese Orchestra, and in November we will once again tour in China."

China and the EU celebrate 50 years of official diplomatic relations in 2025 and Belenguer says culture has helped build bridges of understanding through the universal languages of music, dance, art and literature. 

Two cultures, each with a proud artistic heritage on different paths of constant reinvention and redefinition, are now increasingly sharing the stage in mutual admiration.