Dance Review: Los Farruco at the Palace of Fine Arts

Los Farruco's stunning one-night-only show at the Festival of Flamenco Arts and Traditions at the Palace of Fine Arts Theater on March 6 had to have been one of the Bay Area flamenco community's most highly anticipated performances. So I was surprised in the week after to find out that so few people outside of the flamenco circles even knew that the family Farruco was even performing -- how did it not register on the mainstream dance community's radar?

Even so, pesented by the Bay Area Flamenco Partnership, Los Farruco easily sold the Palace of Fine Arts theater out. The lobby was jammed, and even a last minute snafu with the online ticketing service didn't deter patrons, who waited forty-five minutes for the show to start under chaotic circumstances to say the least. But then, we are talking about one of the world's leading exponents of flamenco puro, and a family of artists descended from the legendary El Farruco, whose grandson Farruquito seared his presence onto the stage at the Flamenco Festival USA with Juana Amaya back in 2003.

Perhaps anticipation of the family's tour was fanned by the release of the 2005 film "Bodas de Gloria," which chronicles the lives of a gypsy clan, in a sort of retort to the violent panache of "Blood Wedding." Farruquito--Juan Manuel Fernandez Montoya, who did not appear on this tour, but apparently helped to produce it-- stars in the drama which was filmed back in 1996, but of equal note were the appearances by El Farruco's daughters, Rosario Montoya "La Farruca" (Farruquito's mother) and Pilar Montoya "La Faraona" and the debut of young Antonio Fernandez Montoya, Farruquito's younger brother, who would take on the name "El Farruco" after his grandfather's death in 1997. These three, La Farruca, La Faraona and El Farruco the younger were joined by La Faraona's son "El Barullo," for an electrifying evening.

If all of that seems confusing, perhaps it's enough to understand that this was a family affair, and that for a few hours, it felt as though you'd been invited into the Farruco family for a glimpse of what life looks like in the eye of the surging storm that their intensity whips up. The show is still a show--this is entertainment of the first-order, but beyond that, it feels personal. These musicains and dancers have something to say--to each other, to us, to a higher power. They have the tools to put that conversation across, and nothing is so satisfying as being a part of that, whether you're onstage or not.

A smoky air hangs over the stage when the curtain finally goes up to reveal guitarist Antonio Rey Navas alone on the stage, playing in cascading ebbs and flows to a theater so silent and rapt that under the strains of a solo you could hear him taking breaths.

But it isn't long before the guys, Barullo and Farruco burst onto stage, roiling with youthful vigor. Clad in simple black pants, a white shirt and red scarf at the throat, they face off, attacking the ground, attacking the music, and you think to yourself, ah the energy of youth. Then La Farruca arrives.

For a moment, the boys look as though they're daring her to take them on... poor mama. Then she unleashes an unsuspected fury...poor boys. La Farruca has a wild feral quality, a tempestuousness, that takes her fearlessly off balance, and yet which she completely controls. In about two minutes her hair is out of a neat chignon and the energy coursing from the singers to the dancers and back is palpable, like an electric current -- you can't take your finger out of the socket.

With the audience still breathing hard after that last encounter, Rey returns, this time accompanying the singers (Antonio Zuniga, Simon de Malaga, Mara Rey and Pedro el Granaino), and the rasp of brings back to me the images of a singer in Granada leaning off an iron balcony above a crowd of hundreds, singing to the Virgin during Holy Week.

The terrifically commanding Mara Rey leads the entrance of a rotund woman with a capacious bosom covered in red silk for the bulerias. Faraona is a force to be reckoned with, even with a bandage on her hand and the audience goes crazy as though we're imploring her to dance, literally shrieking for her to continue.

As Barullo returns, in a rust-colored suit with a long jacket that he flourishes like a shawl, for his Seguiriya, the shouts begin anew. He turns so impossibly off balance that it nearly looks like acrobatics, but from the audience, a woman shouts in Spanish, and the only word I make out is "duende." In response, a faint smile turns up the corner of Barrullo's lips as he rips off the jacket and gets busy charging into ridiculously complex rhythms.

Mercurially, the mood changes again for Farruco's solea and he enters upstage like a shadowy ghost behind the cantaor. Tall and slender, he takes his time, hands capturing the air, moving slowly with sturm und drang washing all around him. Then suddenly, he is like a man unleashed on life, with lustiness and perhap even petulance coming out in lightning blasts of zapateado.

La Farruca returns for the romanza, cutting a stunning silhouette in a long dark dress. With just the hands curled into fists, and her long hair continually escaping its bounds, she looks possessed. She gets all up into the singers' grille, inspires extra energy from them and in a display of dictatorial pique, stomps the ground with a force that conveys a temperament that is at once inexorable and inextinguishable.

As the jaleos draw to a close, the family Farruco takes their bows but fromthe mood of the crowd on its feet and stomping themselves, it can't be over. For an encore, the musicians, singers and dancers all come out onto the apron of the stage and Farruco rips a chair free from its microphone wires and sets it downstage for guitarists Rey and El Tuto to lean on. Now is the time for everyone to dance, even their lighting designer comes out in sneakers and takes a turn with them. Nobody leaves without dancing.