Maria Bermudez (Vascelle Andre)

A loyal following had gathered to see bailaora María Bermúdez and Friends demonstrate, through sweeps of sound and consuming emotion, modern Gypsy flamenco.  

They must have known they were in for a good time.

Shouts of “Olé!” were heard even before the curtain lifted.  “María! María!”  

A dim overhead spotlight seeped through the blackness, illuminating a single guitar player on the stage.  Flamenco and classical guitarist Adam del Monte plucked riffs awash in Phrygian harmonies and Gypsy blues; scales fell in rapid descent from gentle trills and landed in heavy-handed strums. 

Behind him a figure, unnoticed, rose from the floor.  

“Olé!”  

“María!”

María Bermúdez, standing, let a black fabric draping drift to the floor.  She clutched a fringed scarlet shawl about her shoulders, a fluid sail that twisted, folded, and unwound again around her as she took balletic steps about the stage. The clicks of her metal-soled shoes, heel-toeing, were muted.  

The going here was easy, Bermúdez elegant and beautiful to watch with her flower-adorned hair, black gown, and golden bangles grazing her shoulders.  

As she danced in somber meditation, five more ensemble members passed quietly to their waiting seats.

Olé. 

Del Monte’s guitar-playing took a breath, and then a sudden turn.  Lyrical glisses were foiled by percussive chords, and Bermúdez lost no time undergoing a fiery rending of spirit and body, emotion and mind.  She became entranced as the rhythm she pressed into the floor with even staccato pulses rose up into her swaying hips and lifted arms, at times braced and defiant, and others the supplicating, loose ribbons of a siren.  Her wrists circled and her hands stroked come-hithers into the air.  

Controlled and compact, aloof yet alluring, she was as a woman possessed, and she liked it.  The audience was caught in her exquisite grip.

Dale, María.  Hit it.

Bermúdez’s ensemble of singers, clappers, percussion, and upright bass snake-charmed as she moved, calling out her name amidst sighs and grunts and wails of Gypsy song, drawing her along with cajoling pats of their hands.  Shouting changes, the group seamlessly guided the energy of the flamenco between them like molding invisible clay, teasing it out then drawing it back into the clenched fist of cantaora Kina Mendez, who sang in anguished, throaty outbursts of profound heartache.

The white-hot heat of Bermúdez and the rest of the group was brought down to a slow burn by bassist Reggie Hamilton, who played with a tone as rich, warm, and smooth as buttered rum.  Individual notes, heavily jazz influenced and punctuated by pats on the bass’s body and smeared bent-pitch scales, veritably dripped from the strings in his feature with drummer Joey Herédia.

Hamilton accompanied Bermúdez in her second-half opener, a somewhat jarring and tremulous vocal rendition of  Gershwin’s “Summertime.”  Bermúdez took the impressionistic route, employing vast--too vast--rhythmic and phrasing liberties.  Nonetheless she purposed the sidling-up of the jazz spiritual to the folk-inspired and no-less-theatrical flamenco, and did her best to bridge the stylistic gap between the soupy phrasing of “Summertime” and the pointedly articulated and flamboyant flamenco dance.  

With microphone in hand and singing, Bermúdez flamenco-stepped in to the arms of her male counterpart, German-born Spaniard Juan Siddi who, modeling more of the traditional flamenco steps and tall postures that Bermúdez eschewed in favor of her own modern choreography, proved a strong foundation from which Bermúdez drove her most powerful flamenco steps.

If Bermúdez flirted and romanced, Siddi brooded.  His technique, a solid backdrop to Bermúdez’s fluidity, was laced with unblushing physicality.  He played the coy seducer, spinning, snapping his fingers, and stepping high, as restless and agitated as a prowling tiger, again and again turning his heated gaze onto his captivated audience.  

Olé, Juan.  Olé.

Artistry aside, the freedom of movement and music that emanated from the metronomic patterns of clap and step was the true magic of the flamenco that night.  The different voices of the troupe, rather than attempting to outdo each other in vehement emotion, coalesced into the keen-edged rhythms and soulfulness of the dance.  They each earned the torment felt in a song, and deserved what satisfaction they at long last found.

Maria Bermúdez embodied the most visceral affections in the fist brought forcefully to chest, the proud toss of her head, and the swish of her lifted skirts.  She fascinated and tantalized and left everything to her watchers as she tapped out thunderous flamenco rhythms.

Through the strain visible on her face in each ornate and artful baile, a smile always emerged: having wrestled a soul divided, she danced, and emerged triumphant.

María, María.  Dale.

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