BWW Reviews: FLAMENCO VIVO Exhilarates at BAM

Flamenco Vivo celebrated the inaugural performance of flamenco at BAM with high fashion, and dramatic ingenuity.

After 32 years, Flamenco Vivo is a true national treasure, boasting the longest continuous run as an American-Spanish dance company. The legendary co-founder and artistic director, Carlota Santana, greeted the audience, first in Spanish, all smiles.

Two years ago, when Flamenco Vivo celebrated 30 years, the King and Government of Spain bestowed on Santana La Cruz del Orden al Merito Civil, given to foreign nationals who exemplify the honor of Spain.

The wondrous spectacle, titled Angeles / Almas, delivers an authentic melange of tradition to bridge cultures and epochs. Opening with A Solas, once specially choreographed for the company's 30th year, the style of soleá por bulerías begins with heartfelt repose, and ends on a light-spirited high note.

After a gentle and grandiose welcome, Música breathed a warm cante (song) from the background, as the musicians took center stage to embody old Andalucia, the intercultural forge that merged Iberian, Semitic, and African soundscapes into the voice of the Romany people.

In the wake of Andalucia, which fomented during the nearly thousand-year history of Spain as a Muslim country more likened to North Africa and the Middle East than modern Europe, the Castilian era then led to Latin and Caribbean influences.

De Milonga charged into the spongy hearts of the near-packed house with Afro-Latino sounds, as dancers flew "round-trip" through the Bailes de Ida y Vuelta, fusing Argentinian folklore in the vidalita, with the Galician farruca mode of northern Spain.

Truly, the exhaustive intermingling of cultures and histories has their finest and fullest expressions through the performance arts of Andalucia, long a global marketplace of the mind, where the heart of the world is sheltered by strong roots, and where the soul is free to travel beyond home to discover life anew.

At the close of the first half of Santana's exuberant direction, the already well-astonished spectators braced for one of the oldest flamenco forms, the tragic Seguiriya, set to a martinete rhythm, in homage to the complex and unsung life of manual labor.

As per her unparalleled artistry and dynamism, Santana alters the staging in an about-face that takes the audience from the theater to the intimate interiors of a Roma community in southern Spain. For the company's fall season performance last year, she masterfully evoked the informal beauty of Roma street life at Brooklyn College.

The second half of Angeles / Almas went even further in towards an increasingly intimate portrayal of the heart of flamenco. The introspective sentiments of the flamenco artist became the highlight of the stage at the sharp hand of lighting designer Kia Rogers.

Musical director, and lead guitarist Gaspar Rodríguez, followed the intermission with a world premiere inspired by his full-length solo work, "Angel: Del Blanco y Negro". Solos, duets, and ensemble direction and choreography stunned with incredible precision from each stamp of the heel to pluck of the string and inflection of the voice. Irresistible olés could be heard from performers and audience alike as the company illustrated an intuitive unison of deeply inspired sensual soundscapes.

What are the private dramas and passions of the contemporary flamenco artist? Angel Muñoz acted with an immensely authentic poise as he sat under the spotlight in the depths of contemplation. Dancers Antonio Hidalgo and Isaac Tovar accompanied Muñoz under cascading spotlights, embodying the fragile flicker and appreciable prowess of intergenerational continuity in the high tradition of the international flamenco world. Their impeccable artistry met a proud justice to the voice of a marginalized people.

Muñoz charmed with an enviable charisma that left not a few ladies gasping and fanning themselves with libidinous delight. Yet, the limelight could not have been whisked away so suddenly as the incomparable Charo Espino fluttered a magnanimous love for the enlightened magic of the art of flamenco.

As none other, Espino stole the show and animated the warmest and brightest of moods, a whole body of laughter and glorious Spanish womanhood to turn up even the most furrowed of New York's workaday brows.

One of the absolutely breathtaking features to Angeles / Almas is in the seamless contemporary integration of wind instruments, as intoned at the virtuosity of Diego Villegas, whose flute, soprano saxophone and harmonica did more than justice to the rhythmic and melodic complexity in the superb compositions of Rodríguez.

Finally, the flamenco party ends with an invitation, as singer Felix De Lola waved the audience offstage to join in the continuity of after-performance antics, as relished during the Fin De Fiesta jam session dance-off por Bulerías.

As every unique culture and people around the planet grapple with ongoing assimilations into modern uniformities, it is such spirited communities as the flamenco artists of the Roma communities of Spain, who, in their uniquely bold and charming ways, continue to embrace the continuity of traditional beauty with all the love and strength exuded in such creative masterworks as gifted to us all by Carlota Santana.

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