Dance company Flamenco Vivo performed “Fronteras” for a packed opening matinee on April 17 at the Lakewood Cultural Center. The show’s theme was boundaries, but the illusions to the COVID-19 pandemic experience were undeniable.
According to the Flamenco Vivo company’s founder Carlota Santana, the connections to the pandemic are not a coincidence.
“The choreographers started (“Fronteras”) during COVID,” Santana said.
“Folklore” is defined by the American Folklore Society as “cultural DNA.”
“It includes the traditional art, stories, knowledge, and practices of a people,” the American Folklore Society wrote on its webpage.
The Fronteras show explores those exact themes in a lively and sometimes moving performance.
“The artists are boxed in,” Santana explained. “And the question is, how do people relate to each other in this kind of boxed-in atmosphere, this boxed-in world? Do they fight, do they get along?”
The cast uses props to bring this internal struggle out onto the stage.
The characters are performed by dancers Emilio Ochando, Fanny Ara, Adrian Dominguez, Lorena Franco, Ricardo Moro and Rebeca Tomas.
“There’s a fan and there are castanets and there’s the flamenco shawls and flamenco hat,” Santana added. “They switch them back and forth. They trade and sometimes they trade happily, and sometimes they’re angry at each other. So, you can watch that happen and watch how they develop.”
The company’s performance of a boxed-in theme hails back the to COVID-19lockdown when the world was boxed-in. After months of exploring new hobbies and rediscovering talents, people were released into the world. Boundaries once again became a dilemma. It’s also explored in “Frontera.”
The show introduced the audience to each character individually before pairing them with one of the objects. The process symbolizes finding one’s own talent or skill. The songs sung during each discovery are soulful Spanish language tunes.
The songs are performed by singer and percussionist Francisco Orozco “Yiyi,” singer Manuel Soto, guitarist and composer Jose Luis de La Paz and guitarist Calvin Hazen.
Santana explains that the characters do make it out of the box. However, there are still some adjustments to overcome. This is another way that “Fronteras” places the COVID-19 pandemic into the realm of folklore.
“While folklore can be bound up in memory and histories, folklore is also tied to vibrant living traditions and creative expression today,” Santana said. “Folklore adapts, and folklore endures.”
The show raises one of the world’s most recent worldwide events and the psychological aftermath to the level of folklore through its performance.
For example, Emilio Ochando performed a solo dance with castanets to the song “Mas Que Manos” which translates to “More than Hands.” His character slowly discovers the percussive sound of the handheld instruments before playfully matching them to movement. By the end of the dance, Ochando’s moves, and the castanets’ sound are in sync for a fluid sound and movement blend.
Each character interacts with the props in this way, with a few words and some sounds of surprise and laughter. Together, the character solos and their interactions with the props depict a slow development of a talent and later the blending of talents to make one sound, one fluid performance by the entire company. Once they break out of the box, the characters quickly discover ways to blend and share their knowledge to make new more magical movements and visuals.
A hint is that everyone fades into one being when the light comes on.
COVID-19 is never mentioned, but audience members will get the symbolism alluding to the pandemic. The themes also work to conjure memories of being locked down, even though the words are never spoken. Instead, a dance, props and song are all that’s needed to recreate the historic event.
That’s folklore, and Flamenco Vivo successfully executes that in a performance that garnered an extended standing ovation in a packed house, during a Lakewood Cultural Center’s matinee showing.
“Fronteras” was choreographed by Jose Maldonado and Karen Lugo. Music director Jose Luis de La Paz created the original score for the show. Carlota Santana and Emilio Ochando are artistic directors for the Flamenco Vivo company.
For more information, go to FlamencoVivo.org.