After 35 years, Rosario Ancer is a dab hand at overseeing the annual Vancouver International Flamenco Festival she founded with her late husband, guitarist Victor Kolstee. This edition filled nine mostly warm and sunny late-September days with free outdoor shows on Granville Island and, at night, a handful of ticketed performances. The crowds, as usual, were large and appreciative, eager to join in with shouts of “olé!”
The shows, also as usual, were stylistically varied. Palabra Flamenco, an experimental Victoria ensemble that combines English-language poetry with flamenco music and dance, presented Dark Sounds at the Waterfront Theatre (Sept. 24). Artistic director/dancer Denise Yeo, musical director/guitarist Gareth Owen, and producer/poet Garth Martens were joined by guest artist Patrick Friesen, an elder statesman of Canada’s literary scene.
Martens let loose torrents of words in a style his publisher once described as “rough and baroque,” with “titanic” metaphors. Along with Friesen’s quietly intense storytelling, there was a lot of poetry to process by audience members (I felt some fatigue from trying too hard) and also by Yeo—a striking figure with her head shaved, plainly dressed in a long wraparound skirt and black leotard. Her response was a taut muscular dance. There was also the intricate guitar rhythms of Owen, Yeo’s husband and an important contributor to BC flamenco.
Vancouver’s Karen Flamenco offered something different, too, remounting a work titled Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, choosing Max Richter’s super-charged “recomposed” version of the beloved orchestral score. The recorded Richter was broken up with sections of live traditional flamenco music from guitarist Gerardo Alcala and singer Justine Reinhart.
I was expecting a rousing evening, given Richter’s intensification of an already lively score—and it was, with the Waterfront Theatre sold out (Sept. 26). Eva Morenets, a sweet and spritely Spring, was practically airborne at times, while Mikela Gnyp, as Summer, was a force to be reckoned with, especially when set against the whirling, black-clad disruptor danced by Karen Pitkethly (the company’s artistic director). The two women manipulated the trailing flounces of their bata de colas in what seemed a regal battle of wills.
The dramatics were fabulous, though I wasn’t sure what was going on, given there was no obvious narrative to the work, with the choreography credited to Pitkethly, Timo Nuñez and Fanny Ara. Costume colours helped evoke seasonal changes, but Summer’s sparkly red dress and black top, with a change into all black at one point, was confusing. If the work didn’t particularly evoke Vivaldi’s seasons, it was nonetheless powerfully danced by the ensemble and soloists. Thalia Hernandez De Paoli’s saucy Autumn and Veronica Hernandez De Paoli’s sinuous Winter followed after intermission, both seeming to delight in flamenco’s rich physical musicality and passionate expression—and, in turn, delighting the audience.
Flamenco, at its most exciting and fullest expression, presents a cathartic whirlwind of emotions in a single evening or even just one dance. The art form moves easily from the deepest sorrow to the greatest joy, as it did for the mainstage Playhouse performance by Flamenco Rosario (Sept. 27). For an evening called simply Soulfulness, artistic director Ancer brought together artists from Vancouver, Montreal, Mexico, and Spain for a worthy 35th-anniversary celebration.
Soulfulness opened with a solemn candlelit procession and ended with an invitation for the flamenco dancers in the audience to join the performers onstage for a high-spirited encore. In between was a parade of beautifully staged scenes, with guest artists adding an extra sense of occasion.
In her solo, Alegria (Joy), Mexico’s Pilar Fernández showcased the richness of flamenco traditions. Hips, shoulders, and arms circled, reached, and punched into the air with expert abandon, grounded by the rapid-fire percussion of her footwork. Spain’s Macarena López struck an austere note in her solo, Sevillana, to a recorded score for piano and voice by José Luis Pérez-Vera. Throughout, López tossed an enormous fringed shawl in graceful arcs that flowed around and over her body’s own flow as she circled and lunged and yearned along with the music.
During musical interludes, the camaraderie between singer José “El Cachito” Díaz (Barcelona-born, now Mexico-based with partner Fernández), guitarist Caroline Planté (Montreal), and percussionist Davide Sampaolo (Vancouver) was evident in the way they watched each other and leaned closer in, and, especially, in the intimate weaving together of their masterful sounds.
Flamenco Rosario was well represented onstage by company members Katia Flores and Yurie Kaneko in their duet, La Sombra (The Shadow), by Spain’s Albert Hernández. Their fluid moves took them to the ground as they ebbed and flowed toward and away from each other with a mysterious inevitability. Equally mysterious was their deft handling of two small fans each, which they made appear and disappear like magic.
When Rosario Ancer herself finally comes onstage—white hair pulled severely back, wearing her signature long string of pearls over a black top and skirt—she stands downstage, face to face with Díaz. There is only the intoxicating wail of his Spanish song until Ancer slowly begins to twist her arms and stamp her feet, creating her own time and space, the way true bailaoras do. The city’s grande dame of flamenco then left the stage to huge applause, giving the evening’s finale over to the others, the latest assembly of local, national, and international artists to be gathered together under the Vancouver festival’s generous wings.
For more on the Vancouver International Flamenco Festival, visit www.vancouverflamencofestival.org
