CHRISTMAS CABARET
Flamenco group celebrates 10 years of authentic Spanish dance in Santa Fe
Estefanía Ramírez and Antonio Granjero brought their Entreflamenco to Santa Fe from Spain in 2011 at the invitation of flamenco dance icon María Benítez, a Taos native credited with building the art form’s prominence in Santa Fe.
The nonprofit has since become an entertainment staple in downtown Santa Fe that not only performs but also teaches the Spanish music and dance traditions.
This week, the group is celebrating its 10 years in the city with a holiday-themed production.
“In Spain, they have what they call zambombas, where parts of the cities get together and sing and dance villancicos [Christmas carols] to celebrate the holiday spirit,” said Ramírez, who began performing them in Santa Fe in 2017.
Entreflamenco’s holiday production, which runs through Saturday, features three dancers and three musicians performing the villancicos, with passionate, rhythmic dancing accompanied by vocals, guitar and percussion.
Ramírez’s husband, Granjero, was born in Jerez de la Frontera, a city in the Andalusia region in southern Spain known for its rich flamenco history. He learned to dance flamenco at an early age and began touring the world with a children’s ballet company when he was 9.
He later performed with the legendary Benítez and her Santa Fe-based dance company, Teatro Flamenco, as a soloist and choreographer for nearly two decades. Ramírez also danced with Teatro Flamenco, which is how the couple met. They formed Entreflamenco in 1998 in Madrid, Spain.
A decade ago, Benítez asked the couple to take over the work of the Institute of Spanish Arts in Santa Fe, which she and her husband, Cecilio Benítez, had founded in the 1970s. The nonprofit organization brought Spanish music, dance and arts to New Mexico through workshops and performances.
Cecilio Benítez died in 2014 at
the couple’s home in New York. María Benítez still lives in Santa Fe but closed the institute around 2014 and no longer performs.
But Entreflamenco is helping to keep the art form alive in the city.
“María is the pioneer to Spanish dance and flamenco in North America,” Ramírez said, adding Benítez’s work “impacted the work of Entreflamenco that we preserve and that we continue.”
Entreflamenco received the Santa Fe Mayor’s Arts Award in 2017.
Ramírez and Granjero typically produce more than 100 shows each year in their theater, El Flamenco Cabaret, at West Palace and Grant avenues. The space has seating for about 65 guests and serves traditional Spanish food along with beer and wine.
In addition to offering performances, the nonprofit trains dancers and teaches the history and culture of flamenco music and dance. After the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when shutdowns prevented in-person dance lessons, the group created instructional videos to share with schools and community centers.
Leslie Carmen Irizarry, who lives in New York City, studied flamenco with Entreflamenco in 2020 in Santa Fe. The weeklong summer workshop featured three instructors teaching three kinds of flamenco dance.
”To have that variety in that small amount of time, it was wonderful,” Irizarry said.