Latin Dance / Latina Dance de Arte Slide Show

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Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana

Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana brings to the stage the story of the passionate, doomed Carmen, told through the language of flamenco—exploring the universal themes of love, death, pride and sorrow that are the heart and soul of flamenco.

The name Carmen has long been associated with insatiable desire, mysterious beauty, and vengeful and fiery tempers. This timeless story, made famous to modern audiences through opera and film, is beautifully suited to interpretation through flamenco. Carmen: El Baile gives a contemporary twist on the classic story. She is no longer the cigarette girl but the symbol of artistic perfection. Our Carmen is an accomplished, self-empowered woman. Above all, she epitomizes "the dance," showing how the artistic drive—the drive to achieve perfection—can both create and destroy.

The work is conceived and directed by Rafael Lopez-Barrantes, whose 35-year career in the performing arts has taken him from stages and schools in Madrid and France, to ADF and Duke University, and now to the California Institute of the Arts Theater School.

Carmen: El Baile is choreographed by Pilar Andujar who will dance the title role. Ms. Andujar's electric yet graceful artistry has contributed to numerous Company performances. Her choreographies have twice been finalists in the Flamenco and Spanish Dance Competition in Madrid, and she is one of the most sought-after flamenco performers with major companies in Spain and abroad. Original music for guitar, voice, violin, and percussion is being composed by guitarist Calvin Hazen, a long-time Company member.

Carmen: El Baile premieres on February 14, in Anchorage, Alaska, and tours the U.S. before it opens at The Joyce Theater in New York on March 4, 2008.

Latin Dancing

Latina Danza de Arte at its best:

The above is the older form of Latina Dance or Latina Danza which was socially danced during the 1880 - 1910s before the Westernization of the Island Cuba. The dance they are dancing is the guanguanarach / guanguanacha [ diverse spellings ]; though the males are absent.

As a side line...

Tri Falcon and Dove Dance Academy, soon to be the first in developing a Dance Magnet City plan for dance instruction first serving, via Ithaca's Social Dance Economy Program, Ithaca, New York, then Syracuse, Elmira, Binghamton during the second stage; thirdly, Rochester, Albany, Troy, Liverpool, Corning, Buffalo, New York City, Deposit at Scotts, Kenmore, Williamsville; and finally, Washington, D.C., Toronto, and Chicago, where alumni of TFDDA is already developing an Alumni Associations of TFDDA.

If you believe that credit is due to the peoples of Cuba in developing the rich traditions within the diversities of Latina Danza de Arte, then consider joining one of the groups which will be reported on later....