The Arts Council offers an evening of flamenco, filled with sunshine and shadows, happiness and pain.
By: Susan Van Dongen
Women of a certain age may not have the supple bodies of the archetypal flamenco dancer, but they have experience and often pain and that’s what drives the soul of flamenco dance and song.
The raw emotion and expressiveness of the canté the flamenco song almost demands that the singer have experienced the highs and lows of life. Flamenco dancer and instructor Lisa Botalico enjoys teaching women who are no longer young and may even recommend the dance as a form of therapy primal scream with foot-stomping and flouncy costumes.
"They’re very taken by flamenco because it expresses their whole life experience," she says. "It’s an earthy, womanly art form, sensuous, strong and powerful. You don’t need a male partner you stand on your own two feet and dance. So flamenco really has an appeal for women of a certain age. I think they relate to it deeply."
No matter what age you are, you can experience a taste of flamenco when the Arts Council of Princeton presents Tablao Flamenco: A Night of Passion and Culture, at the conTEMPORARY Arts Center in Princeton May 12. Ms. Botalico will dance along with other professionals and students from the Arts Council’s flamenco classes. The space will reflect the sensual atmosphere of a Spanish tablao setting, with candelit décor and intimate tables bumping up against the actual tablao a small platform where the dancers will perform.
The Arts Council welcomes flamenco guitarist Carlos Revollar to accompany the movement and special guest singer Dominico Caro to fuel the passion of the evening with his soulful canté.
Ms. Botalico is thrilled to have Mr. Caro on board; he has sung for many of the flamenco greats, including Jose Greco, Manolo Rivera, Maria Alba and Maria Benitez.
"Singing is what rules the dance," she says. "There’s a very intimate, spontaneous relationship between guitar and singer. Then you dominate with your feet, (establish) the rhythmic pattern and the guitar and the singer will accompany you. It’s a triptych. You should have all three the canté, the guitar and the dancer."
Ms. Botalico says the subject matter of the canté is usually very simple and poetic, something like "I smelled a rose and it reminded me of you," or "What a beautiful blue sky."
She’s also pleased that the Arts Council is accentuating the tablao atmosphere of flamenco, where tables touch the platform and the dancers, musicians and audience members can feed off each others’ energy.
"To dominate that kind of space, to have that closeness and share the emotion of the moment is really the way flamenco should be seen," Ms. Botalico says. "So many of the companies do this ‘Riverdance’ kind of thing, and you miss the personal contact with the dancers. If you really want to experience flamenco, experience it in this kind of rawness, see the dancer exposed there on the stage with just the guitar and the singer."
A Princeton resident, Ms. Botalico is known for performing and teaching flamenco throughout the area, including many appearances with the Alborada Spanish Dance Theatre. She’s danced with La Compania Folklorica Latino, as well as Sol Y Sombra Spanish Dance Company and the Ballet de Puerto Rico. In 2000, Ms. Botalico was the recipient of the Artist in Residence Award from the Arts Council of Princeton, where she is currently a dance instructor. She also teaches at Princeton Dance and Theater Studio and the Dance Corner in West Windsor.
A singer as well as a dancer, she first became entranced by the art form when performing an opera by Manuel de Falla, which had an interlude of flamenco dance.
"The soulfulness, the raw expression that comes from the flamenco song just touched something that was in there buried, something from my Spanish heritage," she says. "So I took off for Spain to study. That ended any dreams of pursuing any other kind of dance. It was flamenco all the way."
Ms. Botalico studied in Madrid in a building named Amor di Dios ("Love of God"), filled with studios where all the famous teachers congregated kind of a "flamenco factory."
"I would spend eight hours a day in the studio, pounding my feet and also going out to see flamenco and sometimes performing myself in small places," she says. "I just loved the culture. When you devote yourself to flamenco, you’re taking on a way of thought and life and it’s very freeing."
As artists throughout history have observed, Spain is filled with beautiful sunshine and shadows, symbolic of the Spanish personality and character, which folds in perfectly with flamenco.
"To experience flamenco, you need to get into the happiness and the pain, and there’s always both," Ms. Botalico says. "(Flamenco) has the pain, but then you come through it, you burst out of that and say, ‘OK, life goes on and we’re going to continue this journey and celebrate.’
"That’s what I like about flamenco it ends with a sense of defiance or joy," she continues. "You don’t wallow in the sorrow. There’s a way to get it out and move on, and that’s very much the gypsy nature."
Tablao Flamenco: A Night of Passion and Culture, featuring Lisa Botalico, dancers and students from the Arts Council of Princeton’s flamenco classes, flamenco guitarist Carlos Revollar and singer Dominico Caro, will be presented at the Arts Council’s conTEMPORARY Arts Center, Princeton Shopping Center, 301 N. Harrison St., Princeton, May 12, 7:30 p.m. Tickets cost $6, $5 members, $3 under 12, $2 members under 12, under 5 free. Limited seating. For information, call (609) 924-8777, ext. 106. On the Web: www.artscouncilofprinceton.org

