The modern dance/flamenco troupe Noche Flamenca returned to the Joyce last week for a two week residence. They were dancing without their star Soledad Barrio, who is currently out with an injury. Their opening night performance was also canceled because of a blizzard, but I caught a later performance.
Their piece Irrationalities was touted as a tribute to the Spanish painter Francisco Goya. It was choreographed by Barrio and Martin Santangelo. At times, the dancers wore the face masks associated with Los Disparates. But mostly, the evening was just a jolly good time. Flamenco dancing is always crowd-pleasing, and many in the audience were obviously long-time enthusiasts who yelled at the dancers in approval.
The music was a mix of live and recorded. The dancers took turns onstage – three men, three women, a mix of both. There was no real story or narrative to follow, other than a few tableaux that were inspired by Goya paintings. But the dancers were extremely dynamic and charismatic and able to feed off the energy of the music and the crowd to dance up a frenzy onstage. I especially loved the segment with three men onstage seemingly competing with each other. The percussive beats of their feet went faster and faster in a crescendo.
There were a few times when I thought that the dancers were dancing around a star who wasn’t there. A bit like the final number “One” in A Chorus Line is designed to be background choreography and not the main dish. There were times the dancers seemed to be dancing in a semi-circle, and I imagine that Soledad Barrio would have been in the center of the circle. I’ve seen enough Youtube videos of Barrio to confirm that she’s an incredible dancer.
So it’s all wonderful, fun, exciting. But … what it isn’t is focused enough for an entire program. I could not sense a unifying theme to the dances, a thread that pulled them all together. The mish-mash of music, costumes (sometimes the dancers wore classic flamenco dresses, other times more modern styles), and the lack of real connection to Goya’s paintings reconfirmed the idea that this program was just an excuse to get some fantastic flamenco dancers together for a performance.
Which is great and enough to please most of the audience. I was just slightly disappointed at how disjointed the overall effect was, like a pleasant potpourri.
