Flamenco's Brave New World. (Reviews: National).

FLAMENCO'S BRAVE NEW WORLD NEW WORLD FLAMENCO FESTIVAL COMPANIA DOMINGO ORTEGA, YAELISA AND CAMINOS FLAMENCOS, COMPANIA BELEN MAYA IRVINE BARCLAY THEATRE IRVINE, CALIFORNIA AUGUST 10-19, 2001

Flamenco is hotter than ever these days. Witness the New World Flamenco Festival, where standing-room-only crowds exuberantly cheered every performance. Given that its maiden voyage occurred during the theater's usually dark summer months, the festival's success is all the more impressive. Americans just can't seem to get enough flamenco.

Here, the audience's enthusiasm was well deserved. The brainchild of Artistic Director Yaelisa, the festival seeks to introduce audiences to the new flamenco. Nuevo, fusion, or contemporary--it's sleek and stylish, the embodiment of cool. Its practitioners are expanding the expressive and theatrical potential of the form by incorporating other dance idioms, experimenting with narrative, or, like Belen Maya, eschewing traditional gender idealizations.

The choreographers shared a penchant for stark down-spots and stage smoke; show-stopping improvisatory solos and powerful unison ensemble work; and a full-bodied integration of relaxed, responsive torsos, footwork, and port de bras. Nevertheless, each company presented fresh, distinctive programs that together fashioned a multifaceted picture of new trends and innovations.

Virtuoso Domingo Ortega, one of Spain's top male dancers, opened the festival with his eponymous company, a relatively new venture that began a few years ago as an all-male ensemble until audiences complained. In ... Y ahora me voy con mi mare (And now I go with my mother), a seven-part suite loosely concerned with the inconstant nature of love, the men (Adrian Sanchez, Julian Martin, and Jose Barrios) still had all the fun--playfully tossing off ricocheting compas (rhythms) with marksman-like precision in joyous alegrias and the fast, furiously high-spirited bulerias of Ortega's hometown, Jerez de la Frontera, one of the cradles of flamenco in Southern Spain.

The women (Begonia Castro, Sonia Fernandez, and Cecilia Lizcamo) enhanced mood and tone, such as the melancholic "La que me espera" ("She who waits for me"), in which they traversed vulnerability and defiance through a range of intimate, everyday gestures--the sort of insecure primping one does in private. But the evening belonged to the alluring, leather-clad Ortega, whose riveting solos confirmed his richly deserved reputation as a consummate rhythmic dynamo.

Alternating in volume and intensity, successive waves of percussive attack exploded and receded in energetic improvisations that masterfully revealed the supple and evocative nature of rhythm, which Ortega can make sound three-dimensional.

Yaelisa, too, is known for her gifted footwork, which in Colores often wound about the stage in a delicate, purring staccato. Drenched in somber hues, the opening one-act suite was dedicated to the memory of Yaelisa's mother, also a flamenco artist. Setting the tone was the piece's initial exquisite impression: vocalist Manuel de la Malena's rough-hewn lament searing the darkness; the striking outline of Yaelisa etched into the inky black depths of the stage by a harrow shaft of light.

Accompanied by singers and instrumentalists playing an innovative complement of western, Indian, and traditional flamenco instruments, and soulful cantadors, the austere tone poem culminated in the poignant "Contratiempo ... a la luz de la luna" ("Counterpoint ... to the light of the moon"), which showcased Yaelisa's filigreed, birdlike hand articulations and the sculptural port de bras that are one of the young company's strengths.

The rest of the program happily focused on pure dancing, with guest artist Juan Ogalla cutting loose in an extended improvised solo highlighting his compact intensity and sharp, combative heelwork. Conversational in tone, Yaelisa's more loosely woven, even rambling Pot Solea encompassed a range of rhythms and emotional textures--from alluring and inquisitive to defiant and exuberant--and displayed her liberating, whole-body involvement.

Closing the festival on a high note, Madrid-based Compania Belen Maya offered a sophisticated distillation of puro and nuevo in a compelling evening of casual mastery. Shaped around a suite of solos and duets emphasizing individual talent, Adir (Heritage) traced the ongoing evolution of tradition by paying homage to the ensemble's teachers.

Maya's unaffected style and orthodox accompaniment (two guitarists and two singers) infused the evening with a sense of tradition. Yet she advanced the most contemporary interpretation of flamenco in the festival, simply dancing with joy and humanity. Gone were the quintessential anger and sadness of flamenco. Gone, too, were the bailaor's (flamenco dancer's) dark, prowling machismo; the proud and fiery sensuality of the seductive bailaora. Freed from the torrid details of tragedy, Maya and Manuel Reyes could playfully trade rhythms in the opening "Tangos" (choreographed by Reyes) like a couple of jazz musicians swapping riffs.

Stylistically, Maya favored large, adventurous port de bras (sweeping circles, downward thrusts, slicing jabs), sassy hip twitches, and pelvic undulations that initiated and responded to footwork, propelling the dancers (Maya, Reyes, Rafaela Carrasco, Yolanda Heredia) into inventive new moves.

These developments may appear inelegant and contrary to classical comportment--a topic humorously addressed by the coy, irrepressible Heredia in alegrias that found her parading about in mantilla, shawl, and a stunning bata de cola dress with an absurdly long, effusively ruffled train. In a solo that could serve as a metaphor for the evening, Heredia deftly maneuvered the swirling skirt in an endless series of chasing turns--besting the yards of fabric until the inevitable moment when the dress overcame her. Hardly missing a beat, she shrugged, unwound herself, and picked it up, at last free to perform increasingly lively footwork. The message was clear: One can appreciate the beauty of one's heritage even while evolving beyond its conventions.

New World Flamenco Festival succeeded in familiarizing southern California audiences with a new generation of vibrant, inventive flamenco choreographers and performers. If there is one criticism to be made, it is that now, having whetted our appetites, the festival won't return for two years--next year it moves to San Francisco. One wonders if it might be possible instead to build on this year's popularity and fashion a project that tours both cities each year. This is, after all, flamenco we're talking about.