Flamenco Festival Celebrates 20 Years In NYC With The Largest Flamenco Offering Ever Presented Outside Spain

Over the last 20 years Flamenco Festival has become an essential way to discover the best flamenco music and dance in New York. From March 12th to April 5th the festival celebrates its 20th anniversary with the largest flamenco event ever presented outside Spain.

Featuring over 120 artists in 53 shows in 20 venues throughout the city - from large and mid-sized auditoriums such as The Town Hall, New York City Center, NYU Skirball and the Brookfield Place, to intimate or alternative venues such as the Baryshnikov Arts Center, Joe's Pub, Dizzy's Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Le Poisson Rouge, and Roulette - this year's festival includes tradition and innovation, classic expressions and new fusions, and is a window to flamenco's vitality and ongoing renewal.

When Flamenco Festival started in 2001 the main objective was to introduce flamenco artists to audiences in the United States. The growing sophistication of the audiences for flamenco has increased opportunities and opened doors to stages that not long ago would have been unreachable. Flamenco Festival has now become part of the musical fabric in the most important venues throughout the world and an international launching platform for its artists.

The theme this year is Breaking walls, uniting worlds, which expresses the need to break down preconceptions in the way we approach flamenco. In this 20th edition, Flamenco Festival is honored to present artists from different generations that use their freedom as an engine for creation that opens new roads and rewrites the language of flamenco dance. This year's festival will feature the great flamenco dancers María Pagés, Israel Galván, Rocío Molina, Mercedes Ruiz, Eduardo Guerrero, María Moreno, La Chana, Patricia Guerrero, Sara Cano, Leonor Leal, Siudy Flamenco Dance Theater and Manuel Liñán, who has created the first flamenco queer show.

The singers and musicians that will be at Flamenco Festival New York represent various expressions, from tradition to innovation, from classical sound to the redefinition of the flamenco beat and music. The overwhelming success of cantaor Miguel Poveda has been the key to create new audiences for flamenco singing in Catalonia and America as he incorporates ballads and popular songs to his repertoire. The incomparable Niño de Elche will return to New York to present his latest work, Colombiana, which mixes visual resources, music and poetry. The soulful vocalist Rocío Márquez joins together traditional flamenco repertoire with other musical rhythms. Rancapino Chico, a torchbearer for flamenco puro, will present his acclaimed show Por mi amor al arte (For My Love of Art). Marco Mezquida & Chicuelo, Aurora, Rancapino Chico, Santiago Lara, Antonio Lizana, Newbojaira + Randy Brecker, and Dani de Morón + Yotam Silberstein will introduce their music to NYC audiences.

The Flamenco Festival program also includes bass guitar player and cantaora Rosario La Tremendita with a very fresh approach to flamenco; Los Voluble, whose Flamenco is not a crime program mixes flamenco with electronic music and political videos; and Maui de Utrera, who presents, for the first time in New York, an appealing cabaret offering with all of flamenco's passion.

Maria Terremoto, Kiki Morente and José del Tomate, representing the next generation of flamenco artists, continue the traditions of their legendary families and add to flamenco's vocabulary. It was back in 2005 that Flamenco Festival presented Kiki and Jose's fathers, the late great singer Enrique Morente and the master flamenco guitarist Tomatito, at Carnegie Hall.

Since its first edition, Flamenco Festival has presented 696 concerts with 137 companies in 90 venues around the world, working with the leading flamenco names of the last 20 years, including Sara Baras, Miguel Poveda, Vicente Amigo, Eva Yerbabuena, Estrella Morente, Carmen Linares, Tomatito, María Pagés, Israel Galván, Rocío Molina, Olga Pericet, Rocío Márquez, Rosalia, Rafaela Carrasco, Paco de Lucía, and Enrique Morente.

More information at www.flamencofestival.org