Flamenco is like an animated conversation. Singers, guitarists and dancers confront, bodies listen, generate instruments and react to movement. At the end of an evening, the performers often move around the stage in a tight cluster, as if they want to continue the discussion outside the stage.
These talks have been largely silent in New York for the past two years, as the Flamenco Festival, one of the city’s main purveyors of this music and dance, was canceled due to the pandemic. But this drought is coming to an end, as the festival, now in its 20th edition, returns this week with two groups of dancers in City Center. (Earlier this month, Miguel Poveda, one of Spain’s most popular singers, or cantaores† gave a concert at Skirball.)
Despite the impressive number of performers, including Manuel Liñán’s company in “Viva!” (on Friday) and a Gala Flamenca (Saturday and Sunday), featuring three exceptional dancers – María Moreno, Mercedes Ruiz and Eduardo Guerrero – this year’s edition represents a radically streamlined version of the festival. There are only five programs (three music concerts and two dance shows), compared to the few dozen originally planned for 2020, which would have been the largest in the festival’s history.
In October, when the program was scheduled, “it was still unclear whether smaller venues in New York would be open,” Miguel Marín, the founder and director of the Flamenco Festival, said in a telephone interview from his home on the Costa del Sol. in Spain, where he and his partner have been living since March 2020. The festival chose to return anyway, but in a smaller, more concentrated form. “We said, vamos, let’s continue with what we know is possible,” Marín said.
The resulting line-up includes ‘Viva!’, a full-length show featuring the dancer and choreographer Liñán and his company of male dancers, who perform in the elaborate, decorative costumes associated with female bailaoras. The show, which exuberantly expands on ideas about how gender can or should be presented in flamenco, has been a huge hit in Spain since its debut in 2019, winning several awards.
Marín called “Viva!”, originally scheduled for a 2020 New York City performance, a real breakthrough, noting “how Spanish society has evolved beyond certain prejudices, and especially in an empire usually considered so traditional” .
The “Gala Flamenca” that follows is an evening of solos and ensembles. Although it is a simple format, it is a chance to see three of the most exciting flamenco dancers at work, each with their own style of performance. Guerrero is all pull curves and sharp corners; he will dance a caña, a merry dance full of dramatic pauses. Moreno plans to perform a cantiña, a dance from Cádiz, where she comes from. Ruiz, who is attracted to ascetic, dramatic dances, will perform a martinete, a serious dance performed “a palo seco”, or accompanied only by the human voice. Her partner is the exciting young singer María Terremoto, 22.
Ruiz and Terremoto have a remarkable chemistry. “I love to feel that energy, that nerve, that fear when I’m on stage with Mercedes,” said Terremoto, whose last name means earthquake — fitting given the earth-shaking weight of her voice. (In flamenco, as in ballet, ancestry matters: both her father and grandfather were considered greats in the field.)
Like all performing arts, flamenco was hit hard by the pandemic. Privately funded and largely based outside Spain, Marín’s organization has been able to produce very little in the past two years. Travel restrictions made touring nearly impossible. Performances were often scheduled and canceled. “You can’t imagine how much complexity we’ve had to deal with in these two years with all the different vaccine requirements in each country,” he said.
For flamenco artists working in Spain, the situation was slightly better. Already in the summer of 2020, the performances started again with less audience, and last May the Festival de Jerez, one of the most important flamenco gatherings in the country, resumed. Still, the performance capabilities have declined drastically. And while many unemployed dancers and musicians received government aid, many others in the largely unregulated world of flamenco lost much of their income.
“Most flamenco artists work under the table, without a contract,” Marina Heredia, a cantaora who is also founder of Unión Flamenca, an advocacy group founded in 2020 in response to the pandemic, said in a phone call. “They don’t pay taxes, and they don’t get any benefits from the government. They received no help during the pandemic. I have friends who had to leave the field altogether, who had to go to the countryside to pick fruit.”
Also affected were tablaos, the traditional bars or restaurants where flamenco is presented in a less formal setting than in a theatre. Heavily dependent on tourists and unable to serve food or drink indoors due to mask mandates, most of these small spaces are closed during the worst months of the pandemic. While many have reopened, some, including the well-known Casa Patas and Villa Rosa in Madrid, have not survived.
the tablaos were an important source of employment. “I have many friends and colleagues who only dance to tablaos,” Guerrero, a dancer in the Gala Flamenca, said in a telephone interview. “They are having a hard time.”
By contrast, artists with a large following, such as those who came to New York, were usually able to work during the pandemic, albeit at a less frenetic pace than usual, especially in Spain. For them, the past two years have been a time to slow down and find more balance between artistic and family life. Both Ruiz, who is from Jerez, and Terremoto had babies.
With less hectic schedules, these artists were also able to spend more time developing individual projects. Liñán, the choreographer of “Viva!”, created a new show, “Pie de Hierro”, which revolves around his relationship with his father, a former bullfighter who has never seen him dance in drag. (The show’s name refers to his father’s surname, Piedehierro.) “He’s very conservative,” said Liñán, “and can’t bear to see me in a bata de cola,” the traditional ruffled long dress that worn by some female flamenco dancers.
Terremoto has recorded a new album, which will be released soon. Guerrero, Ruiz and Moreno developed new full-length shows. All agreed they could have dug into more personal, complex material.
“We were able to work slowly, little by little, layer by layer,” said Guerrero, whose new show, “Debajo de los Pies” (or “Underfoot”), delves into his relationship with the flamenco tradition, which premiered in 2021. “It used to be about going out and dancing flamenco, but now I’ve found a more conscious way of working, thinking about what I want to say.”
Even Marín, the usually hyperactive organizer of the Flamenco festival, has slowed down and focused his efforts on creating a residency program, based on his property on the Costa del Sol, in the town of Torrox. Artists come and stay for a few weeks to develop material in a quiet environment without interruptions. Marín hopes to use the residencies as a way to bring artists together who might otherwise never find the time or opportunity to collaborate.
The American public will not be able to experience the fruits of these residencies or see the new shows of these artists at the Flamenco Festival this year. Instead, this edition is a return to a simpler format, “un nuevo comienzo,” or “a new beginning,” Marín said.
The festival will likely grow over time, but, Marín said, he has no intention of returning to the bounty of the past. “I can’t say I want to go back to the way it was,” he said. “After 20 years I wonder, what can we bring to the table? We don’t have the answer yet. But I’m sure it will become clear soon enough.”
Flamenco festival
Friday through Sunday in City Center, Manhattan; nycitycenter.org.
