Archive for flamenco

Hermetico by Andrés Marin

Posted in Kids with tags , , on May 15, 2010 by xi'an

Last Friday, there was another flamenco show in the nearby theater, so I convinced (maybe for the last time!) my daughter to come with me to watch Andrés Marin and his flamenco show Hermetico… She hated it, while I enjoyed most of it, even though it was far from traditional flamenco. The show is quite imaginative, with dancing choices that are sometiimes closer to modern dance than to flamenco but the cantes remain those eternal laments where the singer could carry a single note/vowel forever without loosing its intensity. And the ultimate mastering of the feet moves (zapateado) by Andrés Marin makes him part of the instruments as much as the dancer. My only regret is the inclusion of a rather jazzy piano that clashes with the voices and even more with the flamenco guitar. (On its own, the pianist Pablo Suarez does quite well, muchas gracias!, but the piano should have focussed on being a percussion instrument, first and foremost.) I also liked the unusual setting of the scene with the bar tables that double as (additional) percussion intruments. (This show does not appear on the website of Andrés Marin, although there are strong similarities with El alba del último día.) But the ultimate outcome is the absolute rythm permeating the whole show that remains in the back of my head, in perfect completion of the cantes flamenco, even a few days after…

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Flamenco se escribe con jota

Posted in Kids with tags , , on November 23, 2009 by xi'an

My daughter and I went to see a flamenco show by the company of Miguel Àngel Berna in a nearby theatre, a show mixing flamenco dances and cantes with jota dances and cantas. The result is quite impressive, both art expressions mixing naturally in dancing as well as singing. In the end, flamenco still keeps the higher ground, with its soul-wrenching cantes and dances that make it transcend a folkloric genre towards a universal message…

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