Dance on the Bucket List

I did not realize that watching true flamenco dance live needed to be on my bucket list until I witnessed the premiere performance of Calo Flamenco's Dancing Across Fairbanks at the Blue Loon.

It is impossible to adequately describe the impact of a live flamenco performance in prose. You must witness the intensity of authentic tableau flamenco to fully appreciate the art form.

Calo Flamenco opened an innovative FCA project to a modest but enthusiastic crowd at the Loon on Monday. Fairbanks gets the benefit of the core of the dance troupe as they have pared personnel from the group that performs at large venues. This is a plus. The result is an intimate, hand-crafted experience that inexorably draws the crowd into the true spirit of flamenco dance.

Bernadette Gaxiola began her dance training at age of 6. She has studied with artists Laura Moya, Luis Montero, Oscar Nieto, Julia Lopez, La Meida, La Conja, Carola Zertuche, Yolanda Heredia, Isabel Bayón, and Antonio “El Pipa”, and continues to be inspired by her brother Martín Gaxiola.  Company/Performance credits include Laura Moya Spanish Dance Co (AZ), Flamenco Ole/Antonio Granjero (PA), Ballet Etudes (AZ), 'Zona Flamenca (Scottsdale). She has performed throughout the United States including American Dance Festival (VA); Philadelphia's Fringe Festival and Feria de Abril (PA). She conducts her own adult/children's flamenco classes and is founder of the children's group, Gitanitos del Sol.

Flamenco is considered by purists in Spain as the lower class of spanish folk dance, the dance of the gypsies, performed historically in small encampments or in tableau, the term for the venues that once made significant inroads in the bastions of classic spanish dance such as Madrid. These days true authentic flamenco in Madrid has dwindled to a perhaps a dozen small locations, down from the 60's when the artform flourished there.

The first thing that strikes you is the incredible discipline and tightly constrained style of the dance. There is a deliberation of movement and gesture, every nuance of the body and and expression bound as if the dancer is straining to keep the spirit of the dance from exploding out of control. Artistic director Martin Glaexio seems to be reaching to channel the soul of God when performing, a mischievious madman possessed by inexplicable energy.

The three dancers of the troupe display the technical expertise required to allow true improvisation to flow and yet not overwhelm the presentation. Building on what is obviously years of practice and accumulated expertise, the Calo Flamenco dancers manage, somehow, to channel the energy they induce to the performance into a carefully contrived visual poetry that is at once charming and mesmerizing.

But it is evident that it's not merely a routine repetition of a well-rehearsed routine. Quite the opposite. As flamenco guitarist and spokesman Chris Burton Jácome explained, the dancer leads the group on stage, including his impeccable accompaniment, a gentle percussion from Kristofer Hill, the the soaring vocals of Olivia Rojas and the hand-clapping, foot-stomping and verbal encouragement of the dancers not in the spotlight. It is this framework of appreciation from the audience and the rest of the troupe that makes the performance the interactive improvisational gem that it is.

While every gesture and facial expression is part of a lexicon of flamenco tradition, each dance is unique to the moment, the venue and the response of the crowd. It is comparable only to the finest jazz, flowing from the heart and on raw display.

There is a projection of abject confidence bordering on arrogance, as if the dancer is daring the dance to overwhelm him or her, but Bernadette told me in an interview after the show that while she was instructed by her mentor to seize the stage and command it, she feels a true vunerablity while performing—what she feels is what you get.

And what you get is remarkable.

I'm already looking forward to the next performance, tonight at 8 at Dance Theater Fairbanks, one of only two local to the downtown audience. Moreover, my cowboy boots are waiting for the Saturday workshop at the Artisan's Courtyard.

Anything worth putting on your bucket list just to watch is worth learning how to do.

— Larry Lowe