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Displaying items by tag: Flamenco Passion

I’m going to admit, this was not exactly what I expected. I heard flamenco and, me being a guitarist and passionate for the instrument, I thought…hmmm…Flamenco guitar music. That fact that the show would feature the degree of dancing it did never even occurred to me. So, I got the best of both worlds. There were guitars playing in the very impressive musical outfit, accompanying by dancing that was nothing short of spectacular. Two singers and percussion were also included in the act. Like I said, this show had everything.

Eduardo Guerrero was the lead dancer and was exciting to watch, each move as graceful as the last with just the right amount of aggression when needed. Six dancers performed different variations of Flamenco dancing throughout the presentation so we as the audience were treated to a true cultural experience to remember. Everything about the show was amazing.

One of the things that draws me to Latin Music is the rhythm. You can’t escape it. I looked up the word flamenco and found it comes from the word Flemish. The people who originated this type of dancing were gypsies from that area. Interesting.

Another thing I have noticed about Spanish music is how much I hear an Arabic flavor to the melodies and harmonies. You couldn’t miss it in the vocal melodies. I had a chance to watch a Turkish band play a while back and the music was so very similar. It’s fun to see how we are musically influenced from all parts of the world.

But back to the dancing. Microphones were strategically placed on the stage to pick up the sound of the dancers’ feet, literally making their bodies part of the music. Guerrero did some solo work out there that was so rhythmically driven I could see why they needed an intermission with so much energy being spent. This type of dancing must be exhausting. Some of the dance numbers were quite lengthy and would surely wear out even the strongest of dancers.

The costumes alone were worth the price of admission. I also sense a bit of an Arabic influence in that department. Bright colors dominated the stage to make each number as colorful as it was precise and energetic. The many people involved in making this production seem effortless are extremely gifted.

Guerrero and company did a fantastic job and left us with something wonderful and uplifting to take home. I heard the audience respond positively throughout the entire performance and rightfully so. This was yet another great show at the MacIninch Art Center (The MAC) at College of DuPage, proving again that you don’t need to go downtown to be entertained.

Published in Dance in Review

I love flamenco for its sensual power and the amazing way both female and male dancers, whether solo or couples, locked in passionate embrace are able to make the human body dance with such precision and emotional fury. Is there any other dance form where the men are so manly and sexily dressed in their boots and waist coats and the women in their flowing dresses so, well, womanly?

 

Currently performed at North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, "Flamenco Passion" as a rich production covers the whole range of human experience; dancing for your life, dancing for your love and dancing for the death of those you've loved deeply. The group numbers are stunningly modern like the world premiere of “Iroko”, while remaining true to the art form and "Alegrias y Jaleos", which make you feel you are in the countryside of Spain witnessing a turn of the century town dancing their way through life in a wonderful celebration of spring.  

 

“Bolero”, the acclaimed masterwork by Dame Libby Komaiko was a true stunner! I didn't realize it myself until this performance that you haven't even heard the full potential of the music in Ravel's “Bolero" until you've seen a stage full of the greatest forty flamenco dancers in the world bring it to a smoldering and exploding catharsis. 

 

In the second act an onstage singer, Cajon player and two guitarists accompanied all five dances, which really showcases that flamenco is a uniquely human and difficult dance to master. More passionate than tap yet just as exacting, more sensual than ballet yet just as demanding,  

 

We as Chicagoans should be so proud that Dame Libby Komaiko founded Ensemble Espanol at Northeastern Illinois University in 1975, and that her worldwide acclaimed dances and company are still going strong. 

 

Longtime Ensemble dancer Irma Suarez Ruiz, who'll begin taking over the role of artistic director from Dame Libby in the coming year and Carmela Greco with her long mane of silver hair both blew the entire sold out audience away. The two proved that dance is the way to stay young with 2010 solo "Duende Gitana" which intermingled "Palmas" (hand-clapping), percussion, stamping and song. It really was a masterwork of everlasting love expressed with furious passion (there's that word again) between her and the live musicians. The live music accompaniment dance numbers were heartfelt, raw with almost ragged singing and mind-bogglingly complex percussion from the guitarists and Cajon player that expressed the ageless beauty of both the performers themselves and this wonderful dance form. The subject of no less than two documentaries Dame Komaiko has almost single-handedly kept the art form of Flamenco not only alive but growing and flourishing. She is modest when speaking of her success and acknowledges that in some troupes the art form has become too mechanical. 

 

I could see this show again and again and each time notice brilliant new details from this large and gifted cast each time. 

 

Highly recommended. 

 

Published in Theatre in Review

 

 

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