No sleeping at Sueños

The first time I saw flamenco was many years ago in Sevilla. A group of us were traveling around Spain on one of those a-city-a-day package tours. About a week into the tour we hit Sevilla, and after dinner we were brought to a club for an "authentic" flamenco performance. Eager as we were, we took front row seats, the better to appreciate every stomp of feet and click of castanets and swirl of ruffled skirts, not to mention the dashing guitarists in their tight costumes. It was fiery and passionate and intense all right, but perhaps a bit too hypnotic for our road-weary and jet-lagging bunch, for try as we might we could not keep our eyes open, and what a sight it was to see the front row audience in various modes of snooze, despite all the stomping and twirling and clicking and frenzied guitar playing on stage!

There was no such snooze or slumber the other night at the Cultural Center Main Theater when flamenco great Sara Baras and her group of eight dancers and seven musicians presented her much acclaimed Sueños (ironically, this means Dreams) to a packed house. Every eye was riveted on Baras and her dancers and musicians as they defined all the passion and intensity of flamenco puro, the most essential form of the art. Baras, twice honored with Spain’s most prestigious dance award, the Premio Nacional de Danza, is everything flamenco is reputed to be, setting the stage aflame not just with her precise footwork and movements, but with her spirit and exuberance and brilliance. There’s going to be a surge in enrolment at flamenco classes hereabouts, that’s for sure!

Baras’ one-night-only show highlighted this year’s FIESTA–the Spanish Festival of Culture and the Arts, which included a full menu of events put together by the Spanish Embassy and the Instituto Cervantes to celebrate Spanish Month and Spain’s National Day. Following similar celebrations by the French and the British and the Germans, Manila audiences could hardly keep up with all the wonderful events–from plays to concerts to exhibits to films to food fests to street art and street parties–these countries’ embassies and cultural councils brought over. Forget treaties and bilaterial agreements; the best way to forge and seal good relations between countries is through arts and culture, since these emanate from and touch the spirit, transcending prejudices and preconceived notions, uniting people in a common celebration regardless of social and racial background, economic status, political or ideological affiliation, even language.