flamenco
Prom 17: Antonio Márquez Company, BBC Philharmonic, MenaFriday, 26 July 2013
JThis year’s Proms have been accompanied by an unusual choral drone, a monotony of voices whinging about the prodigious heat at the Albert Hall. For one night only no one was complaining as the temperature gauge went up to something like 111. You’ve... Read more... |
Quimeras, Paco Peña and Dance CompaniesSunday, 14 July 2013
Happy truisms first: Paco Peña is still the greatest of flamenco guitarists, he works with a consummate team of regulars in the most vibrant of dance-art and he keeps it fresh by scouring the world for different players or ensembles to complement... Read more... |
Buika and London Lucumi Choir, Union ChapelMonday, 22 April 2013
The choir sing off stage at first, under the wide arch to the side before filling the platform and singing the praises of Cuba’s Orisha spirits. Those Orisha guys must be shining like beads on a necklace. Lucumi were finalists in the 2008 BBC Choir... Read more... |
Israel Galván/ Farruquito, Flamenco Festival, Sadler's WellsTuesday, 26 March 2013
The annual Sadler’s Wells Flamenco Festival is a hidden treasure-house of brilliance, too quietly sneaking into London in the unappealing limbo between winter and spring, but surely one of the great global gatherings of the dazzling individualists... Read more... |
The fiery poetry of flamencoThursday, 14 March 2013
When Sadler's Wells 10th Flamenco Festival opens tomorrow night with thudding heels, swirling skirts and wailing voices, some will sit there begging to know what the wailing is about. Dancers like Eva Yerbabuena and Israel Galván, singers like... Read more... |
Interview: Carlos Saura, Flamenco filmmakerMonday, 28 May 2012
Carlos Saura is 80, though he looks 60. With a lived-in face and straggly grey hair, he resembles a rebel professor on a 1970s campus. He’s garrulous and speaks a rolling, recklessly elided Spanish. He’s had seven children by four women, one of them... Read more... |
Rodrigo Y Gabriela, O2 Academy BrixtonSaturday, 25 February 2012
Rodrigo y Gabriela’s flamenco gymnastics have gained such a reputation over the past couple of years, it’s been suggested that watching them is like being at a circus. Ever since these two Mexican buskers came over to Europe and started dazzling... Read more... |
Fuenteovejuna, Antonio Gades Company, Sadler's WellsWednesday, 15 February 2012
Flamenco is a fervently political dance language, riddled with subversion of class and gender rankings, honouring old people, hallowing sexual prowess, relishing mavericks, and yet commanding a special symbolic force when it's disciplined into a... Read more... |
From Foot to Foot, How Rhythm Travelled the WorldSunday, 05 February 2012
Two hundred years ago in Durham taverns you could find men in wooden clogs clattering on the tables, with their mates pressing their ears to the underside of the surface. Meanwhile, at the other end of the world, African slaves with bare feet were... Read more... |
Anoushka Shankar, Colston Hall, BristolSunday, 04 December 2011
In the age of Skype and no-frills budget travel, frontiers barely exist – at least if you’re not an immigrant or refugee. World music is as much about boundary-breaking and fusion these days as it is about discovering the unsullied treasures of what... Read more... |
CD: Buika – En Mi PielWednesday, 23 November 2011
With an expensive-looking camera in one hand and a cigarette in the other, Spanish singer Buika’s sepia-tinted CD cover photo is making eyes at me, making it hard for me to think of a bad word to say about this career-so-far summation. I don’t know... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Ensemble Modern, Steve ReichThursday, 11 August 2011
One thing became clearer to me last night – just how much Steve Reich has borrowed from world music in his compositions – we had the flamenco-tinged Clapping, Electric Counterpoint, using Central African guitar lines, and Music for 18... Read more... |
