Festival 2007 Vero la India

June 10th and 11th @ 20:00
Rodey Theatre, UNM

By Jennifer Noyer for the Albuquerque Journal
Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Festival Flamenco Internacional de Alburquerque celebrates its 21st anniversary this year with concerts and classes continuing through Saturday.

Sunday evening featured the intensely passionate young company Vero la India y sus gitanos de Sacromonte. Vero, or Veronica Fernandez, comes from Granada, Spain, and has taken her company from Europe to Mauritania, Morocco and Japan. She and her partner, Ivan Vargas, seemed to flood the stage with hormones and a storm of kinesthetic dynamism.

The opening "Taranto" brought the dancers into a tremulous seduction, simmering with gestures that reached toward each other to touch, then glided past in tantalizing pasadas (passing back to back). Each dancer projected a dramatic psychological focus on the other, accentuated by clear, quite violent footwork featuring golpes de tacon, heels struck in a hammer-type movement.

Cantaor José Fernandez followed with a powerful song that resonated from nasal moan to full throated exclamations expressing deep pain, a true cante hondo.

Vargas performed an "Alegrias" in several sections. Seated at first on a chair at center stage, he began a series of compas rhythms in 12 counts with his hands and feet, accented by sharp focal changes from right to left. Removing the chair to stage right, he then attacked the space with strong thrusting arms gestures and escobilla brushing steps, punctuating an accent here and there with a subtle hand movement.

The third section opened with a more mysterious, even ominous strum on guitar and stamp of one foot. Vargas removed his vest and swung it around his body like a toreador's cape, drawing the audience, rather than a bull, toward him.

A musical section followed with Ismael de la Rosa singing in a more subtle style than Fernandez, understating emotion and moving to the audience as in a conversation. Even to one with a limited grasp of Spanish, the underlying melancholy and humor came across beautifully.

Vero la India returned to the stage with a "Solea por Buleria," a fiery solo that developed from slow, soft steps to sudden stamps and rhythms, which built in speed and complexity. The second section was devoted solely to percussion with footwork, cajon, palmas and guitars struck percussively. She moved around the stage, torso serenely carried above fast, smooth foot patterns, and flirting with musicians and audience.

A musical section blended into "Tangos," with Vargas and Vero dancing short solos and bringing musicians out to dance with them. Vero executed a back bend turn, or vuelta quebrada, that was astonishing. It was a dynamic Fin de Fiesta that brought the audience to its feet.

Return to the Performances listing.

Categories:

• Festival

Return to the Festival home page or the institute home page.