KVT – OLE!

It was the Spanish national day and they had Ballet Cristina Hoyos in town to help them celebrate. Not so long ago Hoyos WAS flamenco and now her company IS. Hoyos began her stellar career with the master of flamenco, Antonio Gades. They became the most legendary flamencos of all time. See here for an early clip of them.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWvM2VlRD6k[/youtube]

Now I wasn’t going to miss out on one of the very best that the flamenco world, and for that matter the classical dance world, has to offer so it was a matter of either beg, borrow or steal a ticket…and after a bit of begging I finally got a good seat surrounded by enthusiastic Spanish expats who ole’d and brava’d through a scintillating program that must have been exhausting for the dancers. At the end we all joined in a prolonged standing ovation full of OLE! OLE! and still more more OLE’s!

Now here’s a piece about Hoyos from 1994 that perfectly fits her company today and just about sums up Wednesday night’s magnificent, dramatic dance, spine tingling performance : “Cristina Hoyos may not have been born a gypsy and inherited flamenco by blood – but from the first moment you see her on stage, you know that she’s the real thing. Standing in profile, her torso slightly bowed and her arms curved out in front of her, the tension coiled within her body makes her as fascinating, dangerous and hypnotic as an attacking snake.

It’s a tension Hoyos controls to devastating effect. Breaking the stillness, she lets it burst through her fingers in an electric crackle of castanets; she sends it winding through her arms in slow, mesmeric spirals; she routes it down through her feet in a storm of rhythmic stamping. It’s a tension too, not just of harnessed energy, but of intelligence. Phrases are shaped with an authority that makes every move inevitable while every dramatic nuance seems freighted with Hoyos’ own formidable personality – as well as a whole history of blood, sweat and tears.”

Modern flamenco dancing is a highly technical discipline that takes years to master and dancers don’t usually reach their peak until well into their thirties….though how the male and female dancers keep those flat stomachs and tight, well rounded buttocks as they age must have a lot to do with that emphasis on lightning-fast footwork performed with absolute precision. Posture is all important as it’s characterized by a proud, upright carriage with little movement of the hips, the body held tightly with arms very long. “The men’s dancing dramatises the opposing forces of flamenco – its frenetic activity and its proud lifted torso and crushing downward force, its alternately relentless and lilting rhythms” (Sorry for the plagiarism!)

Hoyo’s company devised the program  for Vietnam and it is danced mainly to Spanish poems by one of the greatest literary figures of the 20^th century, Federico García Lorca who was shot by fascist forces just as the Spanish Civil war got under way, and the emotive spirit of Andalusia filled the grand old opera house. Lorca was a great champion of Andalusian culture and of flamenco. His poetry is passionate, urgent, haunting and evocative and his followers set many of his poems to music – with an English translation of ‘Take This Waltz’ being famously adapted by Leonard Cohen.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQm1OmLMNno[/youtube]

Wednesday night was stylized and very hypnotic movement that kept me on the edge of my seat, with those spine tingles recurrent. The ensemble dances were electric and the solos or a palo seco were often pure animal tension. The set was pure black minimalism as were the few props – a chair, a shawl, and little else, but used to profound effect. The lighting was perfect and the many costume changes, seamless.

One of those nights that make you so glad you live in Hanoi! One of those dance companies you are privileged to see!

BRILLIANT!
OH YOU LOVELY SPANIARDS!
OH YOU DELICIOUS ANDALUSIONS!
OLE AND OLE AGAIN and AGAIN !