Flamenco Troupe to Dance in San Diego : Stage: The Rosa Montoya Bailes Flamencos, based in San Francisco, will perform tonight and Saturday.

Of all the ethnic expressions seen on San Diego stages, flamenco dance is arguably the most elusive, despite the city’s strong cultural ties to Spain.

“I can’t understand it,” Rosa Montoya said from her San Francisco home. “I know you have a big Hispanic community, and you’re so close to Mexico. But most people in San Diego don’t really know what flamenco is. They may have seen it in a nightclub, but they haven’t seen good, authentic flamenco. There’s much more flamenco in San Francisco.”

Montoya, niece of the master flamenco guitarist Carlos Montoya, and her Rosa Montoya Bailes Flamencos have been performing throughout the Bay Area since she started the group in 1974. Tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Spreckels Theatre, her 12-member troupe of dancers, singers and guitarists will make its San Diego debut, under the banner of the San Diego Foundation for the Performing Arts.

“We’re going to give a variety of what flamenco is--different themes,” said Montoya, a native of Spain. “We’ll have a classical Spanish number, a love drama from Garcia Lorca (the Spanish poet) and something from the Cafe de Chinitas (a classic turn-of-the-century Andalusian cafe). I want people to know what real flamenco dance is like.”

Real flamenco is earthy and flamboyant, characterized by powerful heel beats that pound the floor with the speed and force of a machine-gun volley. It features curving, up-swung arms, beautifully expressive hands and rigidly arched backs.

Flamenco exudes an undercurrent of passion, but that emotion is never allowed to simmer too close to the surface. Dancers stalk their partners in a stylized battle of the sexes, or strut proudly in solo in response to the relentless urgings of the strumming guitars and wailing chants.

This weekend’s program will draw on old-style traditions culled from Spanish Gypsies, 19th-Century zarzuela operetta and Moorish influences, but some of the choreography is contemporary.

A common element is woven through all the dancing, however.

“You need a complement of singers and guitarists to give more flavor to the dancing,” Montoya said, “and you have to have good clapping to make it exciting. The dancers need this.”

San Diego-based Charo Monge is one of two vocalists in Montoya’s troupe. She helps the dancers ignite the smoldering fires of flamenco through throaty chants.

“Flamenco is sort of like jazz,” she said. “If you have a clear voice, it doesn’t work. You have to have a complete disregard for the vocal chords. But, if the dancers understand the lyrics, the singing makes a very important statement. It sets the mood for the dance, depending on whether the lyrics are happy, sad or joking.”

Monge is a singer in her own right and performs at clubs and concerts when time allows, but, she acknowledges, “I don’t enjoy it. The dancer is what makes me really sing. I get the emotions from them, and, as a singer, I can push the dancers. You don’t rely just on choreography. There’s a lot of improvisation, where you can each express yourself.”

Monge said that, when Montoya is dancing, she is challenged to greater heights by the vocalists’ impassioned chants and the emotion-charged music.

“She breaks all the rules, and by the end of the night you have to practically carry her away,” Monge said. “She gives in totally to her art. That’s why I’ll do anything to work with her. She’s very exciting to watch.”

As a release from that excitement and tension, the company will culminate this weekend’s concert with a comic work, called a buleria .

“We do it as a release, but comedy is really one of the most difficult things to do,” Monge said. “It’s also the most fun.”