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The Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras
Flamenco Festival New York 2007
City Center
New York, NY
February 18, 2007

by Susan Reiter
copyright ©2007, Susan Reiter


The opening portion of Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras’ seamless program was so misguided theatrically that the flair and savvy of what followed were all the more surprising. The dancers and musicians ambled and assembled onstage with forced casualness. Racks of costumes were wheeled on, a white fedora was prominently displayed and lit and then appropriated by a male dancer, musicians entered and prepared to play, dancers assembled in small groups to try out a few steps — all while dangerously schmaltzy music, with none of the rigor of the usual flamenco fare, was heard in a recording. One half expected a Spanish version of “another opening, another show” to break out.

Once this unpromising and unfocused (and ultimately unnecessary) introduction was over, the company displayed considerable theatrical savvy as it settled into the meat of “Sabores,” Baras’ two-hour program of 14 numbers presented straight through without intermission. Baras, credited with direction and choreography, employs lighting and costuming in well-thought-out, impressive ways, incorporating a striking sense of color, and in general presents flamenco dancing in a bracingly contemporary context that also alludes to venerable traditions.

Baras, a mainstay of this festival whose work I was encountering for the first time, stakes out the spotlight with proud individuality but without any unnecessarily cliched mannerisms. She does not strut or preen, but rivets the attention with her intensity, focus and spontaneity. She projects an interestingly ambiguous mix of youth and maturity, depending on the moment, and devises her costumes (she had the sole costume credit for this program) with imagination and inventiveness. No polka-dotted dresses with endless ruffled trains for her; her costumes evoke the traditional flamenco costumes but have a sleeker, cleaner look. They are also designed, through clever layering, or loose edges that can be tied together, to be altered slightly but tellingly in the course of the dancing.

Baras shared the stage with two impressive male guest artists, Jose Serrano and Luis Ortega, in “A fuego lento” before appearing in the first of her four solo turns. As rosy light began to spread across the cyclorama, we first saw their hands before the rest of them appeared. They tight, precise dancing began quietly before their attack sharpened and intensified, and they sustained a collegial generosity palpable between them, even though one could sense her tautly controlling the action for her central position. Baras allowed her hips to undulate subtly and dipped her torso in ways that made her soft, full-skirted dress, elegantly shaded form pale grey to black, open out artfully.

Ortega’s elongated line and subtle castanet playing enhanced his extended solo, “Seguiriya,” in which his dancing was more forceful than impassioned. But it built up to an exciting passage of tightly executed footwork. In “Alegrias,” Serrano materialized in a cone of light, wearing that white fedora seen in the opening. Dramatic and riveting, he embodied the music’s rhythms in every possible way, from his vigorous footwork to the body slaps he added when the music reached its peak of intensity. Just when he seemed to be winding down to conclude, he launched into a second portion, within amazingly precise, scaled-down rapid-fire footwork that had a hushed intimacy.

Baras’ most striking solo was “Martinete,” in which she wore a fascinating black costume featuring a sleek, tight sleeveless top and wide black pants overlaid with stylized chaps. The look gave her a haughty, take-no-prisoners air, and she danced like one possessed, building up to a flurry of infinitesimally precise steps.

There cannot be room for ego within Baras’ ten-member “corps de ballet,” a tightly disciplined group. They performed several crisp, taut pieces interspersed between the solo turns, with striking precision and refined elegance. But they often served to frame – with quiet, rhythmic clapping, or in silhouetted formations – the main attraction. The six musicians provided first-rate and varied support throughout the evening, finding unusual nuances that incorporated but also reinvigorated the familiar flamenco sounds. Seated on two small raised platforms partway upstage, they formed a frame within which the ensemble often sat or stood, or through which Baras could make an intriguingly lit entrance. The capacity audience, many of whom were clearly longstanding admirers, responded with fervor throughout the evening.

Volume 5, No. 9
March 5, 2007

copyright ©2007 by Susan Reiter
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