NOCHE FLAMENCA

Noche Flamenca’s tribute to the work of Spanish artist, Francisco de Goya, (1746-1828) in Buscando a Goya (Searching for Goya), displayed all the intensity and passion found in traditional flamenco dancing: rhythmic stomping, clapping, finger snapping,( accompanied by guitar and vocals) with proud, upright postures, and controlled, elegant arms. Artistic Director/choreographer Martin Santangelo and founding partner, choreographer/principal dancer, Soledad Barrio, have been developing this work since 2022, reimagining some of Goya’s antiwar graphics and paintings with the support of Mark McDonald, Curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Performed on an intimate stage at Joe’s Pub in the East Village, the sixty minute work began with the full company on stage, performing El Sueño de la Razón Produce Monstruos (The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters) which segues into selections from Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War). The opening scene is reminiscent of the Goya painting…male dancers seated at a table.  They rhythmically slap their hands on the table in counterpoint as female dancers standing behind, hold large feathered black fans, beautifully lit (Mark London and S. Benjamin Farrar) changing from purple to red the music, dancing, and group dynamics shift.  

As antagonism increases, a woman plasters herself against the back wall, while a man stands on a chair, doused in red, raising his arm as if to strike. Others march and stomp, creating shapes as if holding guns, depicting soldiers ready to attack.  In these two pieces, the group expresses the fears, terror, and anxieties of war through their impeccable rhythms in  hands, feet, and body relationships. 

Pablo Fraile appears in toreador type black pants and shirt, dancing Tauromaquia (Bullfighter).  He twists his torso, then holds in bravado positions; stomps with lightning speed and rhythmic complexity, a proud representation of male strength and elegance. 

Jesús Helmo, in El Perro, (The Dog) stands, darkly lit at first, in a sequined bolero jacket, with guitarist and singer clapping and tapping. The tempo increases then slows. Helmo reaches in anguish, expressing through dance “the need to belong. “

Paula Bolaños playing castenets, dances prominently as seven company members surround her, their faces wearing death masks, beseeching her to join them In Caballo Caído Del Cielo (The Horse That Fell from the Sky).  She refuses to acquiesce to their dark gravity: turning, turning, turning… opposing them with the force of her feminine  energy and resistance. 

The final piece, La Puerta Luminosa (Luminous Room), begins with two men singing about death and the loss of family, as soloist Soledad Barrio enters in black sequined dress.  With profound strength of character in her heroic face, expressing defiance, confidence, agility, elegance… she is the epitome of flamenco perfection. 

At one point, she turns her back to the audience, opening her arms to become a bird in flight; her articulate fingers flutter, her hands gyrate,  her back arches while her feet tell an entire story through their passionate interplay with the floor. She swipes the ground as if coming to earth momentarily, then rises and faces the men as lights fade. 

Santangelo has truly interconnected the deep origins of flamenco, a dance form born out of “ancestral cultural repression and racial expulsion” with the passions found in Goya’s work, realizing the universal truths found in the arts, even centuries apart. 

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Mary Seidman