FLAMENCO LIC AMERICAN BLOERO DANCE CO.
June 22, 2017
Founded in 1996 by Gabriela Granados, American Bolero Dance Company presented
Flamenco LIC at the Secret Theatre in Long Island City. Addressing different expressions of Spanish dance and music, the program offered a series
of variations from Spanish operettas, flamenco, and Spanish dance vignettes including both,
Danza Estilizada and Bolero.
The first part of the program featured baritone Peter Castaldi singing
Manuel de Falla’s El Paño Moruno and Polo; mezzo-soprano Darcy Dunn interpreting El Vito and
La Maja y el Ruiseñor; and flamenco singers Aurora Reyes and Alfonso Cid performing Ojos Verdes
and Falsa Moneda, respectively.
Versatile Spanish dancer from Barcelona, Elisabet Torras, displayed the rich gamut of the
Spanish dance form recreating a Bolero from Tomás Bretón’s Cuatro Piezas Españolas within the
early nineteenth-century style of Escuela Bolera playing minuscule castanets in concordance with
the period. Contrasting in expressivity, Ms. Torras later presented a dramatized scene from the
opera La Vida Breve, a choreographic variation which Gabriela Granados had created for herself
and performed extensively through her career. Joining Ms. Torras in Alegrías, Erika de Julia and
José Moreno evoked the gaiety of the cantiña flamenco genres from Cádiz. Addressing the sorrow
expressed in the poetic songs from the miners of the region of Almería, Mr. Moreno presented a
pensive Taranto solo, which extended through a series of rhythmic footwork passages within the
stances of the letra interpreted by the cante of Alfonso Cid and Aurora Reyes.
The program included two musical interludes contrasting classic Spanish music repertoire
like Asturias by Isaac Albéniz, played at the grand piano by William Hobbs, with a lively Bulería
Musical performed by the flamenco cuadro: guitarists Basillio Georges and Raphael Brunn,
Guillermo Barrón as percussionist, and Alfonso Cid playing the flute. Both closing sections of the
program were graced by the elegant baile of Gabriela Granados, joined by the company in El
relicario and Bulerías de Cádiz respectively. In the wake of flamenco’s tradition, the evening closed with
pataitas por bulería, where dancers and musicians took turns displaying their signature moves with
pellizco.
EYE ON THE ARTS, NY -- Gabriela Estrada
EYE
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