Arts Alive San Antonio

BY JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor

Tamara Adira was 29 when she happened to see a flamenco performance at the Red Room Club in New Orleans. It was love at first site. She knew right away that she wanted to learn more about this thunderous dance.

And she did. Adira is today a leading flamenco dancer/choreographer and producer in San Antonio, and the founder of Arte y Pasion, a company that presents frequent flamenco shows. The latest is “Confluencias,” described as a series of vignettes performed by a group of independent flamenco artists who are joining forces and talents to craft a tapestry of music, dance and poetry “woven together with the common thread of flamenco.”

“One thing I love to do is to bring mentoring artists together with learning artists and allow the former to lift up the latter,” said Adira in a recent interview. “The two masters we are binging in are El Caballero, an amazing dancer and composer from Madrid, and guitarist Berto Boyd from Portland, Oregon. Those two are absolute masters. I consider myself to be a learning artist when I bring these real masters. We all benefit from the interaction. And I also like including our poet laureate, Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson.

“She is like the narrator in Greek theater who interprets what is going on, on stage, or comments on stage proceedings. That’s what I feel she does. It adds a different dimension to what we do.”

For instance, one of Sanderson’s poem/songs “Jade Eyes” is about jealousy, so the dancers will aim to incorporate the feelings invoked by jealousy through their dancing. Of course, all dances will be different forms of flamenco styles. Another number will juxtapose Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” – sung a cappella – with the lively rhythms of the typical alegria dance, which will be performed by El Caballero. Later in the program, he will also dance a solo sigueria.

And Adira herself will perform yet another type of dance – taranto – a dance that originated from the Spanish region of Jaen, where all the men worked in the mines and many never returned to their families.

“This is a dance that is usually reserved for an older woman, and I’ll dance it most probably in a bata de cola (the long, ruffled dress that adds a spectacular flair to a dance),” said Adira, who spent time in Spain studying with Daniel Caballero. “This dance is very personal to me. I was a victim of domestic violence when I first started to compose this dance. It took me five years to complete the process. I love tarantos and I became obsessed with this dance. I had to cry through it. I was learning and practicing the tarantos form and it finally expressed itself through me.

“It has changed over the years after that. It’s a bit like trying to tell a poem when you have only 20 words. Even though the emotion is there, you are limited. But as you mature as a poet, maybe you can have 100 words to express yourself and the poem becomes more complex. That’s how my dance evolved over time. My taranto is about facing the pain, going through it, and about healing. That’s why it’s so special to me.”

Other artists appearing in the show are prominent San Antonio dancer and frequent Arte y Pasion performer. Genevieve Obregon; guitarist Randy Cordero, also a regular Arte y Pasion musician; Spanish singer Celia Sellers, and percussionist Alex Nicholas.

 Obregon’s dance is a tiento, which Adira described as “light, whimsical and funky,” adding, “everybody loves her dancing.” Adira was also excited about Boyd’s performance of his original song, “A Mi Padre,” which he composed to honor his father.

Boyd is one of a small number of composers who write original flamenco music today. His 2017 album, “Convivencia,” was nominated for Best World/Global Fusion album by the One World Music Awards that year. He is deeply involved in the Portland, Oregon, flamenco scene, where he’s the music director of the Flamenco Pacifico company and the artistic director of the Corvallis Guitar Society.

Under Adira’s leadership, Arte y Pasion has produced more than 20 original flamenco productions in San Antonio, receiving multiple honors and winning several awards. She describes her company’s mission this way: “to share, promote and develop the authentic art of flamenco as a vehicle of healing and restoration, and the promotion of human rights and equality.”

To those lofty goals, we would add “and to provide high quality artistic entertainment and lots of fun.”
——————————————————————————————————————–
There will be three performances: March 17 at 7:30 p.m. (doors open at 7); Brick at Blue Star Arts Complex, 108 Blue Star; March 18 at 8 p.m., Tablao Live at Carmens De La Calle Café, 320 N. Flores St.; March 19 at 7 p.m.; at a private location disclosed upon ticket purchase; For tickets go to www.arte-y-pasion.com