Male-Female Struggle Fuels Flamenco in ‘Mujer’

Contrasting male attitudes toward women in Spanish poetry with flamenco dancing in which women defined their own identity very differently, the thoughtful and often provocative “Mujer: Espiritu y Carne” (“Woman: Spirit and Flesh”) enlisted a distinguished company of performing artists at the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood on Thursday.

In “Mala Porque No Me Quieres,” actor Jose Garcia denounced female willfulness--the maddening refusal of the sex to function as an instrument of male priorities. Later, in a lament from “Medea,” he numbly acknowledged a woman’s capacity for destruction, a theme further explored through the use of Lorca’s poem “La Muerte de la Petenera.”

However, the three remarkable solo dances at the heart of the 90-minute event overturned these viewpoints. In “Anima,” Marcellina de Luna presented the female body as liquid sculpture, a miraculous surge of life, rather than something to be possessed. In “The Muse,” Cecilia Romero offered an object lesson in classic flamenco pride and self-possession, each stamp of foot staking a claim, insisting on respect. And in “Renacimiento,” Laila del Monte embodied limitless pain and resignation, the concept of suffering as forever internalized rather than dealt out in mythic acts of revenge.

Musical director Adam del Monte expertly accompanied the dancing on guitar, occasionally adding an embellishment or underscoring to spoken passages (as in “Lo Que Yo Hubiera Sido” with actress Anna Lluch). In “Sirenas,” he composed a somber lyric meditation for guitar and cello--a composition performed so soulfully by him and Jason Guo that it became one of the evening’s triumphs.

Other music displayed the talents of singer Jesus Montoya and guitarist Jose Tanaka, with only a tendency toward over-amplification compromising the result.

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* “Mujer: Espiritu y Carne,” tonight at 8; Sunday, 3 and 8 p.m., Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave., Hollywood. $30. (213) 663-1525.