Conté de Loyo smolders, then accelerates
11:39 AM CDT on Monday, May 21, 2007
Passion and impetuosity define flamenco. Saturday night at the Latino Cultural Center, Conté de Loyo Flamenco Theatre's annual Festival Flamenco stirred up passion in little spurts.
Dancer Conté de Loyo and tenor Miguel Torres perform Saturday afternoon during the 2007 Festival Flamenco at Dallas' Latino Cultural Center.
Most came from flamenco dancers Martín Gaxiola of Arizona and the feisty Delilah Buitrón of Dallas, with a wonderful operatic performance by tenor Miguel Torres.
Flamenco, however, was only part of the program. The first half featured classical Spanish dance, much more structured and sunnier than flamenco, deftly illustrated by Ms. Buitrón and Alicia Adams.
Ms. Buitrón, clad in a pale orange skirt, snapped castanets while singing and lacing the floor with tiny jumps. Her manner was playful with an underlying intensity. Ms. Adams, in black shawl and white shirt, contributed some deft backward kicks.
The ballet influence came vividly into focus with Luis Montero's "Tiempos Guyescos," performed by Fort Worth's Ballet Concerto. In Section 1, Fabiana Fablala, Dana Schmitz and Jennifer Walker barely touched the floor with their heels, fans in motion.
Mr. Montero has a gift for simple but ever-flowing shifts in patterns, giving the dance an airy, happy look, full of waltzes and piqué turns. In Section II, soloist Margarita Bruce, in red, swept in between five dancers in blue dress with scarlet underlining.
She stamped, swayed and disappeared, and the others scampered in wearing ballet slippers, primed to expand their movement into leaping turns and delicate, defined footwork.
To change mood, Mr. Torres simply stood on a dark stage for several minutes, his face impassive. And then he began to sing "Granada," giving the song a thrilling tenderness and warmth, almost whispering at one moment and then unleashing a powerful, full throttle burst of sound.
Act II concentrated entirely on flamenco and its many permutations, from the fierce tangos to the ebullient bulerias, from the sensual to the brooding to the defiant.
Ms. Buitrón best represented the sensual side of flamenco with her flexible torso, playful eyes and temperamental foot work.
Conté de Loyo represented the defiant and brooding, as the narrator Rodrigo Dominguez challenged her in "Soledád Montoya."
In stunning long red dress that sweeps the floor, she flipped the train of her skirt like a whip and swiveled her hips with her back to the audience as if mocking us. Her eyes seemed to pierce some imaginary chasm.
Mr. Gaxiola appeared both explosive and cool. His style is daring and complex, full of sudden outbursts of rapid fire stamps and slow, deliberate walks.
He is also the master of treating his body as a sculpture that must be seen from all angles. But it is his impetuosity – and his habit of glaring balefully at the audience – that makes his dancing smolder and then burst into flame.
Margaret Putnam is a Richardson writer who covers dance.