Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
A festero for the rest of us
The Festival of Flamenco Song in Miami may change the way you think about the art form
Quick: Get a picture in your mind of a flamenco performance.
You probably flashed onto the staccato dancing? Maybe castanets? Perhaps the long, rufflyBata de Cola dress?
But there’s more. The music is just as important as themovement. All of it will be on display thisweekend at the annual Festival of Flamenco Song in Miami, at theAdrienne Arsht Center.
“The singing is essential.… It is the lifeblood of the flamenco art form,” explains Celia Fonta, who with her husband, Paco, runs Siempre Flamenco, a nonprofit for the preservation of flamenco and the producer of the festival. “And yet it is the thing that is most lacking in theUnited States and Miami.”
So they created the festival mimicking the flamenco events in the Andalusia region of Spain, on the southern end of the Iberian peninsula just north of the Strait of Gibraltar.
“Usually they are in the summer,” Celia Fonta says. “There are at least three singers and sometimes four and a dancer, andmaybe two or three guitarists. These festivals can last anywhere fromtwo or three hours or up until thewee hours.”
Paco Fonta explains that often people “think that flamenco is the dancer and the castanets. But real flamenco comes fromthe heart of the singer. It’s very emotional, and it comes from Andalusia and the small towns and the people, and howthey live there.”
The art form is believed to have evolved fromthe mournful cries of a persecuted people when, after the Spanish Inquisition, the Moors, Gypsies and Jews were expelled fromSpain.
At the festival, the guest artists will include LaMacarena de Jerez, a self-described Gypsy; Israel Paz, a flamenco singer fromMadrid; and JavierHeredia, a festero.
“Afestero is the soul of the party,” Paco Fonta says. “This is the guy who inspired everybody. It’s like an art that is lost. The rest [of the festeros] are already old, or they passed away. It’s a very special thing to have him with us.”
The Festival of Flamenco Song inMiami will take place at theAdrienne Arsht Center for the PerformingArts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., inMiami. Showtimes are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday. Tickets cost $38. Call 305-949-6722 or go toArshtCenter.org.