wed 11/12/2024

flamenco

BBC Proms: Ensemble Modern, Steve Reich

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...

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Ballet Flamenco Eva Yerbabuena, Sadler's Wells

There are gifted dancers and there are creatures of the stage. You know the difference immediately. The latter have something shamanic about them, ageless at any age, almost eccentric in their power. Eva Yerbabuena is one of those very rare...

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Estrella Morente, Sadler's Wells Flamenco Festival

Every February the Sadler’s Wells flamenco festival summons the illusion of Spanish sun onto our chilled, grateful backs - this year singers are getting almost as much prominence as dancers. But what sun, I ask, at Estrella Morente’s dark, often...

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theartsdesk in Madrid: Nuevo Flamenco Comes of Age

Miguel Poveda, one of the nuevo flamenco performers appearing at Sadler's Wells Flamenco Festival

I am far from the first - and in very good company - to worry about the over-commercialisation of flamenco. As far back as in 1922 Manuel de Falla and Federico Garcia Lorca, respectively Spain’s greatest composer and poet of the time, decided to...

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Paco de Lucía, Royal Festival Hall

Best foot forward: Paco de Lucía, Spain's musical Picasso

The sense of occasion around flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía’s return to London was palpable. The Royal Festival Hall was heaving. Queues at the bars before the show and during the interval were three or four deep. Spanish was everywhere. And that...

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Flamenco Sin Fronteras, Paco Peña Dance Company, Sadler's Wells

Spain and Venezuela are two countries divided by a common language - in dance and music, as well as in culture. Hence the hook for Paco Peña’s latest production, Flamenco sin fronteras, which while wearing a faintly anthropological air also packs a...

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Havana Rakatan, Peacock Theatre

Havana Rakatan, on stage, Peacock Theatre, London.

Ballet was never meant to be like this: the London production of Havana Rakatan at the Peacock Theatre last night shattered all definitions and formalities and left the audience uttering squeals and sighs of delight (and sexual ecstasy) in response...

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Antonio Gades, Flamenco Master

Antonio Gades, who died on 20 July 2004 in Madrid aged 67, was a giant of modern flamenco, a magnetic dancer and theatrical director who gained an international audience for flamenco while guarding its unique and complex character. His dance films...

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