With These Hands, No Castanets Needed

You could find plenty of castanets on sale in the lobby but none on the stage of the Irvine Barclay Theatre when Yaelisa and her Bay Area-based Caminos Flamencos performed as part of the New World Flamenco Festival on Tuesday.

Instead, the evening became a monument to Yaelisa’s incredibly supple and expressive hands, hands with a life of their own that embellished her taut, forceful dancing with intricate flourishes, energizing the space around her. Castanets (a late addition to flamenco tradition) would only have been an obstruction.

In her one-act suite “Colores,” she danced to instruments from India: the tabla (treble drum) and sarangi (a fiddle with many vibrating strings). Pervasive sound imbalances compromised the result, but the experiment led her to explore eloquent sculptural poses and complex rhythmic interchanges with the musicians akin to those of several classical Indian idioms.

The dramatic “Martinete” found her and guest artist Juan Ogalla dancing in isolation at opposite sides of the stage, their heelwork representing a percussive dialogue and his sudden departure a startling rejection of a relationship that seemed imminent--to her and to us. The unfulfilled prospect of intimacy thus heightened her sense of loneliness in the numb, searching turns and seated resignation at the end.

Ogalla stayed within a narrow technical and expressive range on Tuesday, using his big solo to showcase his vehement attack, command of high-velocity heelwork and flashy tricks: sudden suspensions high on his heels or jumps over his extended leg, for instance. Yaelisa’s final solo proved more ambitious but also disappointingly spotty, offering a passage of dutiful proficiency for each flash of genuine invention or inspiration. Her mastery remained unquestioned, but what emerged resembled an overextended anthology rather than a unified statement.

Monica Bermudez, Alicia Adame, Defne Enc and, especially, the earthy Liza Thomson contributed their own secure, spirited dancing to the occasion and the distinguished musicians of Caminos Flamencos provided an impressive display of their own.

In particular, the alternation between the sinuous, long-held notes of singer Jesus Montoya (replacing Antonio de Jerez) and the husky, stabbing vocalism of Manuel de la Malena sustained excitement throughout, coming into full prominence with “Bulerias de Jerez.” The percussion playing of Sudhi Rajagopal stayed faultless, even when overamplified.

“Liso y Llamo (Tangos),” a duet for guitarist/musical director Jason McGuire and cellist Kash Killion never meshed--though the fault may have been the sound glitches that sometimes left the dancers’ heelwork and various solo instruments hard to hear--this despite the ugly presence of eight floor microphones, nine mikes on tripod stands and nine boxy monitors. In an age of push-button special effects, can’t flamenco companies find some way to hide all this hardware?

The New World Flamenco Festival concludes Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. with Compania Bel en Maya. Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive. $24-$35. (949) 854-4646.