Flamenco was celebrated on the BAM Fisher stage for the first time, as Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana presents two programs of original works by acclaimed contemporary flamenco artists, performed with 6  live singers and musicians.

This studio was founded 32 years ago by Carlota Santana and it is one of the oldest studios in USA. It contains an interesting mix of cultures by preserving the strong Spanish soul of Flamenco.

Flamenco is about emotions in dance, where main six component are:

1. Footwork,
2. Shawl,
3. Fan,
4. Castanets,
5. Hand Claps and
6. Guitar.

We had a chance to attend a Program B on May 23-th with guest soloist GUADALUPE TORRES in her US debut, plus the Company in repertory by Angel Muñoz, Antonio Hidalgo, Enrique Vicent and Antonio López.

Performance was in dark design stage, flamenco sounds everywhere. There were number of performances including both group performance and solo. I would like to mention the magic of playing with unique design dresses while dancing solo or with partner, as it was bringing its own chick to dance. So smooth moves when they have never dropped on the dresses with long tails. That was just beautiful.

The most impressive were the Solo performances. Dancers were losing in a dark lights in the stage by becoming a part of the music and kind a disappearing. They like dancing for themselves, dancing as a real hero of a story by forgetting about surrounding life on another side of the stage. By the end of dance I can feel that they have sweat that much that water drops were flying in the air by each moves. So much energy, speed and emotions that I feel they were also need of some time for doing a step from the dance to reality.

One of the interesting moments is the last performance, when each of the musicians also performed a small flamenco piece that came as a surprise for most of us. That was really cool ending of nice evening. So much fun and standing applauds for artists who made that beautiful evening for everyone.