Wrath fest

The flamenco of Carmen Cortés

by Marcia B. Siegel

Flamenco dance is an endless, introspective battle with darkness, at least as portrayed in Friday night's program by the Carmen Cortés Compañía de Danza Flamenca, the first of two Spanish troupes presented by World Music at the Emerson Majestic last weekend. Every dance and every musical number began with a suspenseful build-up and ended with an abrupt dismissal, as if the extended meditations and dialogues in between had settled nothing.

All flamenco is not alike, and I don't claim to be an expert. To me, the Cortés company doesn't look severely academic. Since it doesn't go to any trouble to help the audience connect what it does with flamenco's traditional roots, I thought of the company's work as a contemporary expression -- maybe all authentic flamenco could be described that way. Both the musicians and Carmen Cortés, the group's director and presumably the choreographer, seem to be reworking traditional forms into imaginative showcases for the ensemble's technical gifts. In addition to Carmen Cortés, the company included dancer Rafael del Carmen, guitarists Vincente Cortés and Mario Cortés, and singers Rafael de Utrera and David Palomar.

Dancer Cortés, who seems to emphasize intense, flamboyant acting, made her first entrance after a somber musical prelude. She looked tense and suspicious as she reconnoitered along a small pathway, scooping armfuls of space and wrapping it back into her body with her arms. Her hands curled in and twisted tight, as if she were advancing through an invisible medium and were going to take every ounce of it with her. She'd run along, her heels stuttering under her, her arms clearing the upper layer. She'd suddenly snap around into a new direction, grabbing the air with her fists. Before some particularly fitful outburst, she'd clutch at the brown ruffles of her skirt and yank it up to give her feet more room. When it seemed she'd fully taken possession of the space -- only she could know when this happened -- she walked off.

All of the dancing and singing of flamenco seems to tell a story, but aside from the lyrics (no song translations or titles were provided), the audience was left to make its own interpretation of the high histrionic fury that pervaded each number from beginning to end. What usually turns me on about flamenco is the articulation of rhythms, the footwork, the clapping and snapping and guitar virtuosity. All this showed up in the program, but when Cortés danced, the percussive excitement came only in spurts. Her partner's footwork was more virtuosic, with some flashy leg gestures, toe-tapping accents, even a few jumps and body slaps added. It also seemed that disproportionate miking, no fault of the performers, caused the musicians' rhythms to overpower those of the dancers.

Oddly, there didn't seem to be any sexual tension between Cortés and del Carmen. Both of their duets gave me the feeling that the sources of their passions were quite private, and probably not the same. In Paso a Dos, they rose from two chairs and danced a conversation with moments of agreement but many more moments of tense dissonance.

In Tangos the distance between them was even greater. When the lights came up enough to make out their forms, we saw Cortés seated, brooding, on the floor, not even looking at del Carmen, who was standing far across the stage. The whole number seemed a challenge. Gradually they approached the center, he with fast spins and impatient footwork, she with almost witchy gestures and a curved-over torso. Could they possibly be lovers? When they finally got close enough for her to touch him on the cheek, the suspense was broken. They immediately turned and went off in opposite directions.

The five dances were interspersed with musical numbers. Both guitarists worked stunning embellishments over a few modern-sounding chords, and the singers mourned and implored and wailed in melismatic, Jewish-Moorish vocalise. Carmen Cortés returned for a last solo, more explosive than her earlier one, but still unyielding and unappeased.