"Ay, Flamenco".

"AY FLAMENCO" John Anson Ford Amphitheatre Hollywood, California August 23, 2003 Reviewed by Victoria Looseleaf

When the Spanish flamenco sensation Domingo Ortega tossed a red rose into the audience in the middle of a fiery solo, the lady who caught it may have thought she was a participant in the hit TV show The Bachelor. She had to settle for a consolation prize: watching him in steamy action. With his long, curly, blond-streaked hair flying and his fire-breathing duende, Ortega has been taking flamenco by the horns and deftly hurling it into the twenty-first century. Whether delivering a fusillade of fast, intricate footwork, or going up on his toes a la Savion Glover, Ortega's foray into flamenco nuevo was on full view in the rose-flinging Alegrias.

Accompanied only by the throaty gymnastics of singers Manuel de la Malena and Javier Requena, who also clapped along with box-drummer Sudhi Rajagopal, Ortega's pirouettes dazzled, while his off-center maneuvering still managed to land him squarely on the beat with the dance equivalent of an Olympian 10.

Not since John Travolta strutted his terpsichorean stuff in 1977's Saturday Night Fever has a pristine white suit caused such commotion. In Solea, the suit-clad Ortega stalked the stage, delivering theatricality with half-lunges, wayward-like heel kicks, and finger-snapping. When he shed the jacket to reveal a skintight black T-shirt, the contrast of the white pants contributed to the notion that Ortega's upper torso has a mind of its own: He unleashed serpentine jumps while commanding attention with compelling armwork and the cock of his head.

San Francisco's Yaelisa and her Caminos Flamencos shared the bill. Coming off of a two-week run of the annual New World Flamenco Festival in Irvine, Yaelisa, too, shredded the stage in her solos, Por Solea and Alegrias. The dancer, whose filigreed hands sculpt the air with aching beauty, is equally deft at footwork: From tiny, skittering steps to the bravado of whipping turns, Yaelisa is also about curves and swirls, especially when making use of a polka-dot scarf wrapped around her thighs.

A ripping solo by guitar virtuoso Jason McGuire ("El Rubio"), musical director of Caminos Flamencos (he also accompanied throughout the evening, as did the singers and percussionist), blazed as brightly as the stars in the outdoor venue. The bad news? Yaelisa's other company members--dancers Juliana Drechsel, Melissa Cruz, Fanny Ara, and Christina Hall--displayed little spark in their mostly rudimentary unison work in Bamberas.

The show's close, however, Fin de Fiesta, brought back the scorching Ortega, whose memory lingered long after his staccato bursts of brazen heel-and-toe tapping faded into the heat of the summer night.