Festival Opens With Passion

Oppressive pain, heroic defiance, percussive footwork as a tribal drum: The annual New World Flamenco Festival opened with primal statements of traditional Spanish Gypsy culture over the weekend at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

In a 90-minute program of solos performed without intermission, Compania Juana Amaya of Seville focused on the tension between showpiece virtuosity and emotional expression. Indeed, on Saturday, Amaya sometimes gave the impression of being forced to dance when she’d rather have been off sobbing in a corner somewhere.

Her opening “Seguiriyas” solo in particular used abrupt switches of position and pressure to portray a woman undone by uncontrollable feelings. Everyday non-dance motions--a prosaic walk, an almost reflexive stroking of her hair--punctuated and heightened the passages of formal dancing, as if she had been periodically pulled out of the performance by overwhelming sadness.

Fighting stances and turns that ended with her confronting an unseen enemy added to the expressive edge of her dancing, and at one point she reached forward as if asking for help, only to suddenly walk away. But whatever inner compulsions were being expressed, her foot-rhythms never wavered from steady, brilliant complexity.

The gruff, wiry vocalism of David Lagos reinforced her emotionalism and complemented the more conventional bravado of the dancer billed only as Bartolo in his “Alegrias” solo.

Alternately slamming his chest, swinging his hips, shadowboxing and abruptly striking poses in which only one curling wrist moved, Bartolo made potent spectacle from gutsy unpredictability. He proved especially masterly in drawing the audience into his changes of visual focus, sometimes seeming to inspect the entire auditorium as he danced but elsewhere narrowing his gaze, and performance scale, to a single hand or foot.

Singer Ana Vizarraga brought raspy vehemence to her segments, including the “Solea por bulerias” solo danced by Jairo Barrul.

In contrast to Bartolo’s flyaway arms, Barrul frequently kept his upper limbs passive, with hands tucked in his belt or at his sides, concentrating on an array of amazing steps. Ornamented with turning jumps, hopping steps, squat-drops, backward staggers, dialogues between his feet and a powerful drumming walk, Barrul’s dancing proved kinetically fiery but expressively cool. However, it seemed almost ungrateful to ask for more personal flamenco from an artist so remarkably accomplished and even elegant at every moment.

After Amaya’s feisty “Solea” solo, in which pride and pleasure in her own prowess frequently shattered her prevalent angst, the three company dancers joined forces for a brief, uneventful coda. Moving professionally through matched step patterns, dutifully trading steps and venturing mini-solos that said nothing new about them, they failed to surprise us for the first time on the program.

However, the biggest miscalculation came when the men made a simultaneous formal exit (one left, one right) and Amaya feigned the distress of a bride abandoned at the altar. What boundless misery. What hopeless despair. What ridiculous overkill.

Flamenco intensity is a precious resource that rebukes many other forms of concert dance for their shallowness and inspires audiences with a vision of living life deeply. It should not be squandered, even by a major artist, simply to add a florid exclamation point to a trio with nothing but convivial expertise on view.

On Saturday, technical imbalances sometimes left the guitar painfully overamplified, and foot-patterns often remained inaudible except when the dancers moved close to the floor-microphones at the front of the stage.

The company roster also listed Chiki, Paco Fernandez and El Fiti. Next up at the festival: Yaelisa (Tuesday and Wednesday) and Andres Marin (Friday through Sunday). Information: (949) 854-4646.