Flamenco performance slated

Miami Herald

The Performing Arts Network in North Miami's Spring Sampler Series continues at 7 p.m. Saturday when Ilisa Rosal and Ballet Flamenco La Rosa perform accompanied by guest artists.

Flamenco that sets the stage afire
Chris Pasles, LA Times

"Sonidos Gitanos/Gypsy Flamenco," directed by dancer Maria Bermúdez, offered an extraordinary evening of dance and music Friday at the chilly but artistically blistering John Anson Ford Amphitheatre. The program was presented in collaboration with the Fountain Theatre.

As faithful flamenco watchers know, Bermúdez is an artist of supreme control and line — a fierce, tight, intense dancer. She could focus attention entirely upon simple, slow, sensuous rotations of her hands that opened her solo, "Viejo Mundo," without betraying a ripple of motion elsewhere throughout her body.

Innovator from Seville puts a Nijinsky-style spin on flamenco
Jennifer Fisher, LA Times

You can't get through a paragraph of press about Israel Galván, one of the hot new innovators of the flamenco world, without hitting comparisons to the iconoclastic Russian dancer-choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky. Such hyperbole can be tiresome, but the comparison became relevant as the stunningly fresh Compañía Israel Galván made its first local appearance Tuesday night as part of the ongoing New World Flamenco Festival at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

A particularly resonant encounter with flamenco
Jennifer Fisher, LA Times

Accomplished and diverse singers combine with strong dancers to evoke the movement of southern Spain.

Weird, wild, wacky – and awesome
Laura Bleiberg, Orange County Register

It was obvious from the get-go that Compañía Israel Galván, the second dance offering of the New World Flamenco Festival, would be out of the ordinary.

The curtain was up, the wings gone, the rear cement wall exposed and a floor lamp with bare light bulb glowing as the audience took their seats at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. This is a preferred setting of avant-garde post-modern dance. And if you want to categorize what Galván does, that's the best moniker: post-modern flamenco.

Flamenco flows at the Barclay
Laura Bleiberg, Orange County Register

Among the many reasons to like the Irvine Barclay's New World Flamenco Festival is just how darn well flamenco's many flavors and facets are presented to the audience - easily digested by connoisseur and novice alike.

It's done not with didacticism, but with unadulterated style; we can really see, hear and even feel what differentiates the artists on a single program, and those from all the others in the festival. You may not like it all; that is, you may favor one style over another. But there is no skimping on quality here. The artists and the artistry are so fine that choosing to like one over another is a simple aesthetic choice. It's like favoring chocolate ice cream rather than strawberry. They're both creamy rich.

Flamenco fest goes out in a blaze of footwork
Jennifer Fisher, LA Times

The New World Flamenco Festival came to a blazing conclusion at the Irvine Barclay Theatre over the weekend with what amounted to a mini-festival of footwork by the Madrid-based Compañía Antonio Canales. In a multipart program titled, simply, "Bailaor" ("Dancer"), Southern California finally got a look at the renowned Antonio Canales, an innovator and charismatic presence in flamenco since the 1980s.

Flamenco brimming with flare
Laura Bleiberg, Orange County Register

Antonio Canales made his debut at the Irvine Barclay Theatre New World Flamenco Festival this weekend preceded by an oversized reputation.

That reputation actually followed him throughout the night, because he made sure that it did.

Canales has been hailed as a virtuoso dancer, choreographic innovator and a trailblazer for today's young boundary-busting flamenco artists. The six-part program for his Compañía Antonio Canales was entitled simply "Bailaor" - "Dancer."

The next flamenco
Agustin Gurza, LA Times

A new century reshapes the passionate art with influences from hip-hop to jazz -- and a strong dose of tradition.

Flamenco with flair from here and there

By MIRIAM SEIDEL
The Philadelphia Inquirer

In recent days, lovers of flamenco had the rare opportunity to see two companies back to back: a charismatic group of performers from Seville, and the locally based, all-female Pasión y Arte.

The Sevillian flamenquistas lit the International House stage Thursday night, presented by American Friends of Flamenco. Low light and casual dress (for the men) established a back-to-basics feel for this performance, which shone with easy communion and trust among dancers, guitarists and singers. Rafael Campallo built storms of precise movement from pockets of stillness, and Choni Pérez made the long train of her dress a pliant dance partner.

Sex From Seville, and the Same Old Same Old From Brooklyn

By EVA YAA ASANTEWAA
The Village Voice

ou missed "¡Viva El Flamenco!" uptown at Hunter College? My sympathies. You missed arguably the realest, baddest, sexiest man in dance today—Rafael Campallo from Seville, Spain—and his partner, Asunción "Choni" Pérez, with their clean lines and contours, hands articulated with piscine fluidity, august command of space.

New York City's Dance Menu Serves Up Vivid Global Variety

By TOBI TOBIAS
The Village Voice

ucky us, living in a town featuring cuisines from around the world, to say nothing of delectable gastronomic fusions. New York's dance scene is much like this. Noche Flamenca, performing at the Lucille Lortel, prides itself on the purity of its flamenco music and dance.

A Dancer Shows How Rhythm Can Set Fire to a Flirtation

By JENNIFER DUNNING
The New York Times

María Benítez Teatro Flamenco approaches this Spanish dance form with taste, tact and a sure sense of theater. But the company, founded in 1970 and based in Santa Fe, N.M., appears to have less respect for flamenco music. The amplification in the troupe's opening performance at the Joyce Theater on Tuesday night had the crushing loudness and synthetic quality of a stadium rock concert, and the sight of a singer sprouting a microphone was distracting.