The 20th Flamenco Festival New York City Center brings the best dancers from Spain to New York City Center in Midtown, Manhattan, Friday-Sunday, March 27-29, 2020 and April 3-5, 2020.
POSTPONED TO FALL
Tickets from $35 at nycitycenter.org
#FlamencoFestival
The 20th Anniversary of the Flamenco Festival New York City Center is a feet on the ground, head in the clouds presentation of the deep roots of tradition, and the possibilities of what flamenco can be.
The sky is the limit and for flamenco it always was. A Spanish tradition, yes, but a blend of every culture between Andalusía and Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab, India. ¡Olé!
Riding the Spanish treasure galleons to Cuba, Flamenco mixes more deeply with African rhythms and we get what we now call Latin music. Creating feelings so strong, they inspire Cuban danzón and rumba, Colombian cumbia, Venezuelan tambor, Argentine Tango, Dominican mergPuerto Rican bomba and plena, and then the salsa; and even send ripples all the way back to Spain (flamenco ida y vuelta). ¡Azúcar!
And it keeps mixing, back and forth across the Atlantic deep. Two hands clapping together across the sea. Flamenco is the proof that we all live under the same sky. ¡El jaleo de la vida, one hot mess of life!
Flamenco Festival 20/20
20/20, a 20th Anniversary in 2020 of course. There is a lot of Flamenco Festival New York, but only New York City Center is celebrating its 20th Anniversary of flamenco in the City. 20/20 is also a metaphor for perfect vision.
This season focuses on contemporary flamenco. If you are a traditionalist, I wouldn’t be worried. Before you can break the mold, you have to fit into it first. To stop evolving is the kiss of death, and this flamenco is very alive.
Rocío Molina ~ “Caída del Cielo”
Friday, March 27, 2020 at 8pm ~ Rocío Molina brings “Caída del Cielo” (Fallen from Heaven). She may be referencing angels. She may be referencing some devil. She may be referencing the iconic fallen woman. In the way that beauty is ironic, they are probably one and the same.
Who among us hasn’t fallen? Some say it is the natural state of life. It’s being born.
María Pagés Compañía ~ “An Ode to Time”
Saturday-Sunday, March 28-29, 2020 at 8pm and 3pm ~ María Pagés Compañía brings “An Ode to Time.” What a perfect anniversary gift. Pagés and her collaborator use external references of Stravinsky, Fosse, Borges and Plato to show what in the beginning, and in the end is flamenco.
Compañia Manuel Liñán ~ ¡Viva!
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 8pm ~ Compañia Manuel Liñán brings ¡Viva! “Live” as in “live and let live.” Liñán puts male dancers in women’s costumes. It’s an expression of the gender fluidity of Latinx. In New York City, this is any night in a bar. But the flamenco community in Spain is as conservative and traditional as can be.
How radical, yet Liñán addresses one of life’s truths which is that inside every man there is a woman, and inside every woman there is a man. Latinx often refers to gender fluidity in the biggest sense, but it is true in the smallest sense too. A man’s creative force is his anima, his female aspect, and a woman’s creative force is her animus, her male aspect. Male/Female are pretty much the same until puberty. And in old age, we become more the same again.
Walk with the fire inside of you, and just live. ¡Viva!
Gala de Andalucía
Saturday-Sunday, April 4-5, 2020 at 8pm and 3pm ~ Flamenco is nothing if not a party. Eduardo Guerrero, María Moreno, Mercedes Ruiz, María Terremoto, and special guest artist La Chana are sure to bring the house down for this 20th Anniversary celebration.
La Chana at 74 years young, is a living legend of flamenco. In the dance world, it doesn’t matter how old you are or how good looking you are. What matters is how you dance. In life’s twilight, the body may not be as supple as it once was, but one’s command of it and the things you have to say are stronger than ever.
#FlamencoFestival
20/20 ¡Olé!
Tickets from $35 at nycitycenter.org