Inspirations are Contemporary and Cross-Cultural in Flamenco Vivo

Wednesday March 09, 2011

from Straight.com
By Tony Montague

The inspirations are contemporary and cross-cultural in Flamenco Vivo!

It’s hard to find a review, preview, or press release about flamenco that doesn’t include the words passion and fire. But there’s another side of flamenco, whether the music or the dance, that gets overlooked—the cool attitude, rigorous discipline, and tight control of the performers. The power of a great flamenco artist such as Spanish guitarist and composer Paco Peña comes from his extraordinary ability to play with the constantly shifting tension between these twin forces.

“Flamenco is that combination of the strong discipline we have in its forms and the inevitable cry of someone bursting out their emotion,” says Peña, reached at a hotel in L.A. “It’s the vehement cry of a people too, projecting what they feel historically, their suffering. A very committed emotional projection, particularly in the song but not only. People cry to the end of their voice, but there’s also the discipline of mastering the complex rules in rhythm and pattern in harmonies that we follow and in a creative way try to do something with it all the time.”

Amazingly, Peña, who grew up and still lives part of the year in Córdoba, is largely self-taught as a guitarist. He’s both a hard-core traditionalist and a brilliant innovator, creating such acclaimed productions as Requiem for the Earth and Misa Flamenca, a Catholic mass presented flamenco-style. For Flamenco Vivo!, the work Peña and his Flamenco Dance Company are bringing to Vancouver, the inspirations are contemporary and cross-cultural.

Read the full article here

La Guitarra Solista	6:15
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