Vancouver International Flamenco Festival welcomes wide array of forms
From Jafelin to Rosanna Terracciano, Rosario Ancer’s open-minded program embraces tradition, multiple cultures, and the edgily conceptual
PLACE, with Rosa Terracciano.
RITE. Photo by Marie-Andrée Lemire
Vancouver International Flamenco Festival takes place at various venues from September 18 to 30
VANCOUVER FLAMENCO maven Rosario Ancer recalls a recent interview with a Spanish magazine about a debate raging in that country’s dance scene. It had called her to discuss a movement fighting the disappearance of “flamenco puro”—the most traditional version of the art form—as it evolves in both Spain and around the world.
That’s not a concern for the Mexican-born artist, who spent the 1970s dancing in some of Madrid’s most hallowed haunts. Look no further than the lineup for the 33rd Vancouver International Flamenco Festival that launches next week. The event not only embraces one of the most punk-avant-garde flamenco dancers on earth—Rocío Molina—who finally brings her dreamlike Caída del Cielo here, but welcomes acts that weave in the influences of Cuba, Turkey, Mexico, India, and Canada.
“My argument is the orthodox and the vanguard can coexist–we need both,” Ancer tells Stir. “The only thing not lost is the soul of flamenco. You can still hear and see the same thing that really touched me all those years ago.
“Of course it's dressed differently, but it’s still saying ‘this is what’s happening to me now and I'm going to tell you about it’. This is one of the enduring things about flamenco and why it is still relevant to our times.”
Ancer is not worried because she’s seen countless debates over new movements in flamenco over the decades she’s spent in the business. Those flareups in the 1970s and ’80s, when she was a young bailaora in Madrid, included the introduction of everything from guitar legend Paco de Lucía’s introduction of the percussive Peruvian cajón to the sweeping flamenco films of Carlos Saura.
Rosario Ancer
Reflecting on the event she founded more than 30 years ago with her husband Victor Kolstee, the beloved local flamenco guitarist who brought her to Canada, and who passed away in 2021, Ancer says she’s brought an equal openness to curation here in Vancouver. She explains: “Our vision for the festival is to present the traditions that we love and honour, but also see the development of the work but also the development of the culture.”
With that in mind, the fest kicks off multiculturally with Qairo on September 20 at the Fox Cabaret, drawing in musical influences from around the Mediterranean diaspora, blending guitar, oud, clarinet, saxophone, drums, and electric bass with flamenco cante and dance. “They have a cultural dialogue, and that’s always important,” Ancer comments.
Another show, Flor de Caña, September 22 at the Waterfront Theatre, blends flamenco and Spanish Latin songs performed in a Cuban style. The show features 11 Vancouver and Cuban performers, as well as Mexico’s Marien Luevano (Mexico). At the heart of it is singer Jafelin, a flamenco singer who pays homage to the old with new touches: “She’s pura flamenco but also has a love of music from Cuba,” says Ancer.
On the opposite end of the spectrum at the same venue is Alberta-based artist Rosanna Terracciano’s conceptual PLACE / is a city written on this body?, September 21. It’s an exploration of a trio of cities—Naples, Calgary, and Seville—featuring Terracciano dancing the choreography of Montreal’s Myriam Allard.
Allard’s own, form-pushing La Otra Orilla, brings its RITE to the Waterfront on September 23. Performers Allard, Hedi Graja, Caroline Planté and Miguel Medina strip down their usual dramatic spectacles for intimate “conversations” between a dancer, singer, guitarist, and percussionist.
The ticketed programming builds to the appearance of Rocío Molina with the surreal and dreamlike vignettes of her impassioned Caída del Cielo to SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, a long-awaited copresentation with DanceHouse and the VIFF after COVID postponement in 2020.
Ancer stresses that an equally important part of the fest is its free flamenco performances at Granville Island’s picnic pavilion all afternoon on September 23 and 24, featuring Jhoely Triana, Al Mozaico Flamenco Dance Academy, Flamenco Rosario’s dancers, and many more.
“They’re all local, and that’s important,” Ancer says. “We want everyone to have access and we support the local community—groups that may not have access to fund a full-length show.” Think of it as a way to discover rising talents before they go out in the world and push the form of flamenco even further.
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