DANCE / CHRIS PASLES : In His Father’s Footsteps : Jose Greco II Finds Own Direction by Following His Famous Parent

The children of famous artists usually have to fight for their own place in the sun.

Consider Jose Greco II, the son of probably the most well-known flamenco dancer of our time.

“It never is a help to be the son of a famous person,” Greco II, 29, said recently. “It’s a very big obstacle. We have to fight people within the profession--and struggle with ourselves--to demonstrate how far we can go.

“When your father is one of the best dancers in the world, you have to be 100 times better than him. It’s very hard to be in his shadow.”

Greco II will not be in his father’s shadow, however, when he appears with the Greco Spanish Dance Company, Thursday through Saturday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

“The star of the show is Jose Greco II,” the senior Greco, 72, says without hedging. “I can’t compete with him. . . . Still, I can justify what I was.”

In fact, Greco will also be joined by daughters Carmela, Lola and Alessandra. Jose Luis Greco, the eldest of his three sons (Jose Greco II is son No. 2), will serve as musical director.

The two men were speaking in a recent phone interview from Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., where the company was in residence.

“I created the new company (in 1988) because of them,” the elder dancer said with pride. “People might respect my presenting them and discover on their own that they’re even better than their father was.

“I certainly do feel that, and I’m not trying to be a salesman.

“I’m even more proud that I didn’t have anything to do with it. They never saw me perform a step live. . . . Just on film.”

Greco’s film career included “Manolete” (a 1950 Spanish film), “Around the World in 80 Days” (1956) and “Ship of Fools” (1965).

However, Greco, an Italian who grew up in Brooklyn, was away from his family so much building his career that several of the children became estranged from him.

Greco II was born to his father’s second wife, Lola de Ronda. He grew up in Spain and began his own dance career, as did the other children.

“I would see them constantly, but just for a few weeks, when I finished a tour,” Greco said. “Then about 10 years ago, I saw they had suddenly developed into what they are--seasoned dancers.”

He offered to include them in a tour in 1985, when he was revitalizing his career. But they refused, and for years the two generations did not talk with one another.

Then in 1988, the kids had a change of heart. They approached their father, the ice was broken and Greco and his children began dancing together.

“It was hard at the beginning, I’ll tell you, mixing family with business,” Greco II said. “We are all very professional and independent. . . . It took a lot of time.”

Greco II, who retains a Spanish accent, (his father still speaks with a New York accent), had started studying by taking ballet lessons and lessons in what he called “acrobatic dance.”

“Everyone who wants to dance has to start with classical ballet,” he said. “It is the basis of all kinds of dances. But I studied Spanish dance by myself. I never went to a specific teacher or professional. I worked very hard.”

He developed a style that his father doesn’t always approve, however. “Young Jose goes sometimes goes against my desires,” Greco said. “He does dances filled with gymnastics and balletic--fabulous--things.

“I tell him, ‘I think this is so exciting to the audience, but sometimes you go beyond the style.’

“ ‘That’s what I feel,’ he says. ‘OK, if that’s what you feel. I can’t do anything about it.’ You have to dance to convey something,” the elder Greco stressed. “Flamenco relies on emotional and personal evocation.

“Even without a lot of technique, dancers can justify anything they want--whether a very tragic moment or one of exaltation or heights of passion. They can do that with the emotional end of it. Expression in itself tells the story.”

In fact, he said, “a dance is called and defined by its emotional evocation, whether it’s sad, happy, (lonely, seductive,) noble, all of these have to have that essence in the dance.

“If you see a dance that doesn’t really look like what it’s supposed to be, even if the dancers are doing a routine learned from a great master, it will really leave you cold if they lack that other mystic thing we call duende ,” or soul.

Both men consider flamenco a “living art form,” which means they are not trying to argue for some kind of pure presentation of the form.

“We’re not trying to recreate a cafe or tavern,” the elder Greco said. “We’re going to put dance on stage for a paying audience. It’s my capacity to achieve that. If I can’t achieve it, forget it. You’re either a good director or a bad director; either a good showman or a bad showman.”

If a company tries to recreate the kind of dances traditionally done in Spanish taverns merely for the sake of authenticity, Greco II added, “you’re limited. You only know two kinds of numbers which you’ve been dancing all your life. You don’t know how to do any more. But if you are a dancer, it means you dance everything.

“I have this ability to dance classical and modern, everything. But the only way I feel I can express myself is in flamenco, particularly in the farruca. “

Still, over time, his style has changed, he said. “I am more slow in movement and more quiet now, and that means my technique is much more perfect now so I can let my expression be more clear.”

Looking ahead, he does not fear the clock ticking, as many dancers do. “In flamenco, you always have a little way to escape,” he said. “It’s not like classical dance, where you have to have elevation. In flamenco, you can continue even as you get older.

“Look at my father. It’s something incredible to see him at 72 doing steps like he does. I feel very proud of my father.”

The Greco Spanish Dance Company will appear Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. at Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine. $14 to $18. (714) 854-4646.

SAN ANTONIO HIT: Frank Ticheli, composer-in residence with the Pacific Symphony, has scored a hit with critics in San Antonio, Tex. A three-movement concerto for jazz band and orchestra entitled “Playing With Fire,” which Ticheli co-wrote with Jim Cullum, received its premiere last Thursday by the San Antonio Pops and the Jim Cullum Jazz Band.

“Conventional wisdom has it that a symphony orchestra can swing about as well as a chicken can fly,” wrote Mike Greenberg in the San Antonio Express-News. “Well, the chickens soared Thursday.”

“The piece is hot,” wrote Diane Windeler in the San Antonio Light. “There was some sizzling musicianship going on. . . . Throughout the 30-minute three-movement piece, there was an almost palpable sense of ‘jamming’ between two ensembles with enormous mutual respect.”

The Pacific Symphony has no plans to play that piece anytime soon, but the orchestra will play a new Ticheli work, yet to be named, on Feb. 3 and 4 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.