Retablo experimental sobre el baile flamenco
Sadler’s Wells East, London
June 7, 2025
On the lit stage, two chairs are placed at odd angles to each other – a simple visual device that incites curiosity. What’s that about? Que pasa?
Sharp black out, bright lights up, and five black-clad male figures stride purposefully onto the stage.
The first of six short choreographic pieces, Meter Los Piés, was not particularly promising. Two youthful male flamenco dancers (Jorge Morera and Manuel Montes) perform in competitive macho mood. So far, so cliché. The number evolved into a ‘pas de deux’ of contemporary-dance lifts, contact-improvisation moves, floor-rolls, a bit of hip hop and the occasional ballet leap, all in a compás (rhythmic musical phrasing) of five. Now that’s unorthodox in the world of flamenco
Photo Beatrix Mexi Molnar
As choreographer Rafael Estévez sat to the side giving titles to each section, as if reading out loud the stage directions, the duo developed a witty zapateado dialogue of call-and-response footwork, and found many playful ways to dance around a chair including gazelle-like leaps and skidding swirls.
In the second piece, Reflexión, dancer and choreographer Valeriano Paños danced solo por seguirillas, blending flamenco with classical Spanish dance to the accompaniment of palmas (rhythmic hand-clapping) from his three fellow dancers stood close to him in a perfect diagonal. A single powerful footlight projected Paños’ lithe figure onto the back wall, as if creating an additional giant company member. While his suppleness and strong smooth style were impressive, it was interesting rather than gripping.
It was the third number, Nondedéu (‘Never mind’ in Corsican), that had me sitting upright in me seat. Dancer and singer Alberto Sellés spoke in clearly articulated Spanish of Silverio, the renowned singer of the Golden Age of flamenco, and of how one can indeed dance to martinete.
Photo Beatrix Mexi Molnar
Now, this may seem obvious to those brought up on modern flamenco, but Sellés proceeds to tell us how, in the olden days, the palos jondos (serious, sombre flamenco forms) such as soleá, martinete and seguirillas were not danced, and that only the cheerful palo chico (cheerful flamenco form) alegrías was. He illustrated all this by expertly singing and dancing short bursts of these various palos. That’s unorthodox in the world of flamenco: to see someone equally at ease and supremely skilled in both the cante and the baile.
It was clear that we were in the presence of a maestro expert flamenco lecturer and performer. It was also at this point that I realised there was no guitarist present. However, I had not missed the music, because of the percussive quality of the dancing and the exquisite raw-voiced singing.
In the fourth section, Café, it was older dancer & choreographer Rafael Estévez’s turn to step into the limelight. A big man (his generous physique, wit and charm reminded me of the Walt Disney cartoon character Baloo the Bear), he chose to dance in the most delicious feminine style, embodying with subtlety and style the archetypal curves and wrists curls of the matriarchs of the Golden Era. He was accompanied by Alberto Sellés who sang a pot-pourri mega-mix of palos all in the count of eight. A cheeky verse of garrotín (an improvised form of song and dance) here, a sprinkling of Tangos de Triana there, and a gentle sobbing wail of Catalina mía to finish. It was another beguilingly unorthodox moment in a show that was increasingly feeling very special and that rightly earned the audience’s warmest applause of the evening.
In the next offering, El Cuaderno de Félix Fernández (The Notebook of Félix Fernandez, a flamenco dancer hired by Diaghilev on 1917 to teach flamenco to his Russian dance troupe, including Nijinsky, in preparation for their performance of El Amor Brujo, The Sorcerer’s Love), Valeriano Paños and Alberto Sellés collaborated in quoting from said notes, offering personal interpretations of each succinct phrase or word quotes: enero – rodilla, febrero – salto, marzo – erotica, abril – manos de santo, mayo – dedos, junio – pitos, julio – vuelta, agosto – muñecas… That is, the months of the year. There was also knee, jump, eroticism, hands in prayer, fingers, finger-clicking, turn and wrist curl. Flamenco footwork energy levels were listed and demonstrated: pianissimo, piano, medio, Fuerte, fuertisimo. It really was like being a fly on the wall of a hot humid dance studio in Seville, witnessing a playful dance workshop in which the fundamental elements of flamenco dance were each given their due focus.
The show closed with Dos Ritmos, an ingenuous dancing dialogue between the two company leaders Paños and Estévez in which each reproduced the distinct rhythms they had danced to individually in the show: seguirillas for Paños (1 & 2 & 3 & & 4 & & 5 &…) and tangos for Estévez (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8). Side by side, they simultaneously counted their contradictory rhythms out loud, dancing in cacophonous overlap until the moment when the final strong beats met in unison. It was a very engaging representation, perhaps of how, in daily life, strong differences in approach between individuals might be resolved and reconciled given enough care, patience, skill and listening out for the moment of reunion.
It was a superb evening to close this year’s London Flamenco Festival, with many moments that were truly original, thought-provoking, challenging, educational, witty, entertaining and novel although the staging of the show could have done with some variety of lighting states and/or colour coding, so as to prevent the various numbers from blending into each other. And I still do not understand why it was described as an “Experimental Flamenco Dance Altarpiece.” By the end I felt privileged to have been present. The delightful highlights will stay with me for a very, very long time.
A few final thoughts on the new Sadler’s Wells East. This was my first visit and first impressions are favourable. The foyer and bar areas offer a sense of spacious ease, with pale wood flooring and windows for walls. Entrance to performance space entails a long descending staircase, the theatre itself boasting a steeply raked four-square auditorium. Think the Lilian Baylis Studio’s big brother. Time will tell whether the building will thrive and wear as well as Sadler’s Wells’ mothership down Rosebery Avenue way.