Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana will present the world premiere of FRONTERAS at The Joyce

What images come to mind on hearing the word “flamenco”? Feet hammering floor; intense gaze; arched spine; proud, almost arrogant posture; fiery performers? Perhaps all the above, but Black bodies probably don’t figure into the picture. Yet African-descended artists are reaching out and embracing flamenco as their own. “Decolonizing flamenco” is a label used to […]

At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, rising musician Antonio José Martínez Palacios was executed without a trial at just 33 years old. To pay tribute, the Madrid-based Marco Flores Dance Company teamed up with filmmaker Jaime Dezcallar to revisit and reimagine his music through this dance film. To a stirring original score by […]

After spending the pandemic locked down in Seville, Spain, contemporary Flamenco dancer Cristina Hall returned to her hometown of San Francisco and put all the emotions of the past year and a half into a dance film. Directed by Natalie Shirinian and with cinematography by Dylan Bell, “Boundaries” was shot at Saint Joseph’s Art Society, […]

Brinda Guha is a master mixer. With a deep background in kathak and training in other forms of Indian classical dance, including Manipuri, she began seriously training in flamenco during a monthlong workshop in Spain in 2007. Upon returning to New York City, Guha continued studying the form while also expanding her movement vocabulary with […]

Like many dancers, flamenco artists have suffered devastating economic losses during the pandemic. Iconic venues in Spain, such as Casa Patas, have closed their doors permanently and the newly formed labor union, Unión Flamenca, has predicted that 42 percent of artists will permanently leave the profession. As I was trying to digest the grim outlook […]

Spain’s José Galán challenges audiences to rethink how they perceive those who are disabled. For the past decade, he has directed Compañía José Galán de Flamenco Inclusivo, a professional company that features artists in wheelchairs, with vision impairment and with Down syndrome alongside dancers without disabilities. Regarded as the foremost expert of flamenco dance for […]

In just two years, dancer and choreographer Cristina Aguilera has performed her solo works at the two most important flamenco festivals in the world: the Seville Flamenco Biennial and the Jerez Festival. In De Agua, Plata y Tierra in Jerez, Aguilera brought drama and lyricism, but also the raw energy and precision that preserve traditional […]