Flamenco Festival at NY City Center - March 2024

[ABT Fan]

I went to today's matinee performance featuring the National Ballet of Spain. Has anyone else gone? The Flamenco Festival has been a yearly program at CC for many years and I've always wanted to go. I'm so happy I finally went!

Their first piece, Eterna Iberia, showed off the dancer's ballet training and the choreography featured lots of brises, cabrioles, extrechats, and pirouettes combined with traditional flamenco. The first half of the program used all taped music, which was fine. The second half of the program absolutely brought the house down with on-stage singers and musicians (guitar and percussion) and incredible dancing. I was sitting up in the mezzanine which was inadvertently perfect - there were many intricate and ever-changing choreographic formations when large groups of dancers were on stage and I don't think I could have appreciated it nearly as much had I been sitting down in the orchestra.

I have to specifically mention Jose Manuel Benitez, who performed a spell-binding solo. At times pausing and dancing in complete silence, I could barely breathe. His dramatic stage presence, control, charisma, and technique was extraordinary. The entire company was in fact incredible - extremely well rehearsed and the footwork and percussion was absolutely on fire.  In the middle of it all, I remembered a thread on here a month or two ago where a few of us were commenting on some male ballet dancer's exaggerated flair and mannerisms in their DQ solos. They should study these dancers.

The last performance of the Nat'l Ballet of Spain is tomorrow the 10th. If anyone is thinking of going I can't recommend it enough. The next two weeks will feature different artists.

Edited March 10 by ABT Fan

[abatt]

I saw the company this weekend.  The Natl Ballet of Spain has not visited NYC in many years.  Loved their  performance although I thought they could have left the ballet portion of the show at home.  That is not their specialty, and it shows to anyone who has seen world class ballet artists.  They have some spectacular, mesmerizing flamenco dancers.  I look forward to this festival every year.

[volcanohunter]

Apart from Eterna Iberia, which "balletic" pieces did the company perform? I am familiar with Eritaña, which includes lots of batterie, and this is native to Spanish dance, not an interpolation from ballet. (I realize it's a flamenco festival, but the artistic mandate of the National Ballet of Spain is broader than that.)

[ABT Fan]

20 minutes ago, volcanohunter said:

Apart from Eterna Iberia, which "balletic" pieces did the company perform? I am familiar with Eritaña, which includes lots of batterie, and this is native to Spanish dance, not an interpolation from ballet. (I realize it's a flamenco festival, but the artistic mandate of the National Ballet of Spain is broader than that.)

It was only that one and it only included certain ballet steps, it wasn’t a classical ballet per se. I do not mind that classical ballet is not their specialty as I wasn’t expecting that, and I thought the use of cabrioles especially added to the flair of the rest of the choreography.

[Helene]

Spanish classical dance has overlap with ballet, but is not a ballet derivative.

ETA: Performing companies also do pieces that stretch and extend folk dances into theatrical pieces.  Here’s one jota-based dance performed by Antonio Gades and Christina Hoyos:

 

[ABT Fan]

25 minutes ago, Helene said:

Spanish classical dance has overlap with ballet, but is not a ballet derivative.

Precisely. You explained it better than I.

[volcanohunter]

Batterie isn't something invented by ballet dancers. There are lots of pas de bourrées and basic jetés in traditional dance, and also heel-clicking. I'm sure the cabriole and jeté battu existed before ballet began to codify them. Beated jumps won't always look the way that ballet dancers execute them, but those are differences in performing style, and I don't think ballet should have a monopoly on those steps.