FLAMENCO VIVO CARLOTA SANTANA
May 25, 2018
Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana, a leading American flamenco dance
company, celebrated its 35th anniversary with the première of Mujeres Valientes
during the 2018 BAM Spring season. This choreographic proposal depicting Sor
Juana Inés de la Cruz and Manuela Sáenz resonates with the current discourse
about women who take the stand and lead as advocates in education, artistic
expression, and social justice. According to its choreographer, Belén Maya, their
lives are an example nowadays of how women with strong ideas go through
countless obstacles in their life, empowering themselves by showing they are
capable of building the lives they want to live. Belén emphasizes how Carlota
Santana, founding director of Flamenco Vivo, is using flamenco, a traditional and a
contemporary evolving art form, to tell modern stories. The artistic collaboration
process for this piece included talented artists, musicians, and dancers from both,
the US and Spain, with the original concept by Ana Inés King, the score by
flamenco guitarist Gaspar Rodríguez, and the dramaturgy direction by Rafael
Abolafia. The lyrics in the cante por Romance included verses from Sor Juana’s
poem “Hombres Necios que acusáis” (You Foolish Men), and a Taranto with
content from the letters Simón Bolivar wrote to his loyal revolutionary colonel and
lover, Manuela Sáenz.
Mujeres Valientes opened through an intermittent exchange of illumination
and blackout introducing glimpses of two nuns and a woman dressed in an elegant
scarlet dress in a bare stage with only two stacks of books in opposite corners. A
coquettish Guajira enlivened the scene where Juana employed her books as the
traditional fan in this flamenco palo of Caribbean origin. Moments of photographic
plasticity captivated the audience when Estefanía Ramírez, in the role of Sor
Juana, encircled two men in velvet black cassocks, Emilio Ochando and Isaac
Tovar. While the men exchanged angular and round phrases responding to the
accents and cadences of Sor Juana´s poems por Romance, Estefanía
complemented her percussive footwork throwing at them pages she tore from her
books.
An austere Martinete marked the transition from Sor Juana to the story of
Simón Bolivar’s “liberator.” Gaspar Rodríguez, directed the music ensemble
situated in a lateral balcony conformed by himself at the guitar, accompanied by his
homologous, guitarist Pedro Medina, singer and percussionist Francisco “Yiyi”
Orozco, singer Jesús de Utrera, and the wind instrument artist Diego Villegas. In a
pre-show interview, company lead dancer, Elisabet Torras, explained how Belén
guided her through the choreographic process of researching and embodying the
role of Manuela, role which empowered her beyond the stage as a woman and a
flamenco dance artist. The performance proved Elisabet´s growth in strength,
stage command, and artistic maturity. Her subtle gestures conveyed the narrative
as powerfully as her percussive footwork dialogue por Taranto with the
accomplished flamenco dancer, Isaac Tovar, as Simón Bolívar, both dressed in
military uniform.
The evening closed with a traditional flamenco cuadro section with an elegant
traditional Caña and Farruca magnificently performed by guest artists Guadalupe
Torres and José Maldonado respectively. The last number was a Fin de Fiesta by
the Flamenco Vivo company, where Carlota joined her Associate Artistic Director,
Antonio Hidalgo, in the festive sequences of solos and duets, with a pataíta por
Bulería leading to a joyful finale with the whole ensemble exiting embraced while
singing Todo es de Color.
EYE ON THE ARTS, NY -- GABRIELA ESTRADA
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