BWW Reviews: NOCHE FLAMENCA at Joe's Pub

In the candle light of Joe's Pub, "Noche Flamenca" enraptures its audience with raw sensuality. The program features a vast emotional landscape that flamenco is capable of conquering. Flamenco also has a vast array of unique performance virtues. Unlike most dance forms, flamenco is simultaneously feminine and masculine, percussive and melodic, and respects the virtues of seniority.

The full cast of nine gently opens the production, seated in chars with dimmed lights as they accompany the guitar with clapping and singing. This opening moment defines the immediate performance collaboration between the music and movement, both of which propel flamenco.

The trio of younger female dancers ascertain a coy romance to their movement, in particular the confident Marina Elana, with her precise gaze and unfaltering yet impressionistic footwork, which details a seductive yet inviting incarnation of flamenco. An abstract fight sequence duet between Juan Ogalla and illusionist quality hip hop dancer David Thomas electrifies. The energy in their elegant machismo, as beautifully accompanied on electric guitar by Hamed Traore, makes for an unexpected and effective collaboration. The performances are accompanied by the raw voice of Emilio Florido, who textures the space with his unfiltered rasp.

The collaborator on whom the evening's ever transforming energy rests most decisively is the transcendently powerful Eugenio Iglesias. In the program's sole unaccompanied solo, Joe's Pub is transformed. He entices melody and soft melancholy into the candlelit cabaret space through gentle breezes from his guitar.

Closing the evening's program are the group's most senior dance masters. The first, Juan Ogalla, hypnotizes with shifting percussive patterns and rhythms. His pure stamina is enough to stun. The final is the powerful solo performance by Soledad Barrio. In all black, she exhibits a depth of quality and conviction of force. Her presentation is rapturously somber. This final solo extends flamenco from a theatrically framed social form to a cathartic concert dance experience.

Though Joe's Pub is preferable in atmosphere to the stale architecture of formal concert halls, it is admittedly, and as of yet, an imperfect dance venue. An unfortunate lip to the stage makes viewing the footwork difficult, and the necessary flat floor disturbs sight lines even more. Still, the technicians at the venue did a wonderful job in their crisp sculptural lighting design and well balanced sound.

"Noche Flamenca" is a rare experience whose language is absolutely of a specific culture, yet whose meaning is universally tangible.

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