Madrid-based Flamenco troupe appears with “much stronger” show at The Pearl Company
Canadian-born Flamenco artist, Lia Grainger, might have started out as a journalist, but the curiosity and excitement she felt when experienced her first Flamenco performance has taken her to unexpected places.
On Saturday, Grainger along with her Madrid-based performance troupe, Fin de Fiesta Flamenco, performs at The Pearl Company as part of a 40venue tour across Canada.
The intimate space allows audiences to savour every nuance of the six-member troupe’s performance. Flamenco is not a style that allows anyone to nod off, particularly at close range.
“Musically, we’re so much stronger,” said Vancouver-born, Madrid-based Grainger who still freelances as a journalist though Flamenco is the cornerstone of her life.
“You really feel the emotion of the music,” she said. “We have all new choreography, all new pieces.”
The troupe’s musicians include Dennis Duffin, who holds a PhD in astrophysics from McMaster University, flautist Lara Wong, French singer Alejandro Mendia and Cuban-born percussionist Hanser Santos Gomez.
Grainger said these experienced Flamenco musicians “understand the language of the dancers,” creating a richer experience for audiences.
As Grainger’s study of Flamenco delved deeper, she became more passionately aware of what the moves and the music means and this year, she will be performing with another Canadian, guest artist Deborah Dawson — stage name “La Caramelita” — a dancer of Indian heritage who has her own unique interpretations of Flamenco.
“I’ve been following Deborah for years, watching her develop,” said Grainger. “She’s super different than me, her style is wild and earthy and she really plays a lot with rhythm. She’s really beautiful.”
Flamenco is thought to have developed over several centuries from gypsy, Moorish and Andalusian music including strong Indian influences.
Like Grainger, Dawson discovered Flamenco as a youth in her hometown of Vancouver and instantly fell in love with the art form.
“I wanted to go to Spain, see what it was all about,” Dawson said, recalling promising her parents that after graduating high school she would return after one year and enter university. At 18 she left Canada for Spain to study the art and never returned. She now lives in Bordeaux, France.
“With Flamenco, the first impression is the visual, the colour, the motion,” Dawson said. “There are strong females (dances) on stage, I was drawn to that.”
Even watching the six-foot-two, athletic Grainger, though they are very different body types, sparked the dancer within.
“She is very tall, I’m not, I’m fivefoot-two,” Dawson said. “Our styles are very different.
“I’m inspired by traditional gypsy Flamenco.”