Sara Baras opened the London Flamenco Festival with a bang in a show that just never stopped giving. Normally, the words “2 hours (no interval)” would have my prostate trembling but the minutes just flew by, helped no doubt by a plethora of curtain calls. Long before the actual end of Alma, following a particularly explosive solo by Baras wearing a shimmering seven-layered black dress, the house lights came up, there was a universal standing ovation and some people left. But this was a false ending and encore after encore followed until the true conclusion was marked by the belated presentation to Baras of the 2019 Olivier Award for her previous show in London, Sombras.
Baras is one of the world’s great divas, a superstar who transcends genres; a performer whose anguished concentration is so perpetually etched into her face that the occasional smile lights up the stage like a lighthouse beacon. The advancing years (she is 52) have had no effect on either her artistry or energy, although Alma was less a marathon than a series of well-paced and well-dispersed sprints. Baras remains in majestic, dazzling form, giving several arresting solos, including the lyrical nostalgia of the Seguiriya and the explosive, triumphant joy of the Bulería. Her fast, twisting body spins and the fluid expressiveness of her hands and rapid wrist turns (known as floreo) are undiminished. At one point, I foolishly wondered if Baras was not a little stiff in her upper body and then she blew that nonsense away with a hyper-flexible, rippling undulation of her shoulders.
Above all else, Baras is the queen of flamenco dance for her magical feet. It is the spell-binding intensity and speed of her footwork (taconeo) that has the audience enthralled. Amplified to the max, the rhythmic tapping of her feet can seem like choreographed machine-gun fire, thousands of beats with not a single one out of synch, but also – such as in the Seguiriya, she can decelerate the movement so that the audience is suspended in breathless anticipation of the next tap. Baras performed briefly - twice - with mantóns (the colourful fringed shawls of flamenco), creating such a seamless continuum between her body and the fabric that the mantóns appeared as if giant eagle’s wings sprouting from her arms.
Baras did not however perform with that other staple of flamenco dance, the bata de cola (dresses with a long, frilly train) and who would want to cover up those magical feet! Instead, she wore a stunning wardrobe of dresses that are frequently hitched up by one hand as Baras stamped out an intense sequence of percussive beats through imperceptible movements of her feet. The only evidence that she is drumming the rhythm is witnessed by the furious twitching of her skirt. Each sequence concluded with a triumphant flourish of her arms, raised out to the audience, or held high in the air. Like the greatest of tap artists, she is as much a musician, as she is a dancer.
Despite the impression that I may have given, up until this point, Alma (which means “soul”) is not a one-woman show. Baras was supported by a small corps of six dancers (five women and one man) and they provided enjoyable interludes between the star’s many costume changes, although one sequence in an improvised dressing room when the women demurely changed from voluminous turquoise dresses into black trouser suits seemed unnecessarily incongruous.
Alma is a slick production that links the ‘flamenco heart with a bolero soul’ (bolero being a dance characterised by rapid spins, stamping feet and sharp poses). The diverse lighting designs (by Chiqui Ruiz) are integral to the impact and the strong sense of theatre is emphasised by Vegas-style ruched curtains at the rear of the stage and (for a large part of the show) silver, beaded curtains at the front. This heightened the impact of entrances and exits (which Baras does slowly and with an inimitable style) but it was also an unnecessary obstruction to the fourth wall when the performers were behind the curtain.
Shows by Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras reach out beyond the confined world of flamenco aficionados. It is flamenco with a West End touch. The guttural raw edges of cante jondo (deep song) are smoothed away in a musical performance that although appropriately dominated by outstanding singers and the superb guitar-playing of Keko Baldomero and Andrés Martinez also unusually featured piano, flute and saxophone, the latter two instruments played by Diego Villegas. One of the concluding highlights was a sensual duet performed by Villegas and Baras, circling each other on stage with leonine intent. It was a sequence that encapsulated the slow-burning emotion of this extraordinary show.
