30-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Review: A Flamenco Powerhouse Is Still the Star but Not the Whole Show
'Cuidado!,' someone in the audience at the Joyce Theater yelled on Tuesday.
It was opening night of Noche Flamenca's new show, 'Legacy of Our Dreams,' and the company's star, Soledad Barrio, was finishing her climactic solo. Turning in the direction of dimming light from one of the wings, she was nearing the edge of the slightly raised dance platform. The voice in the audience was warning her to be careful.
Too late. She fell into the wing.
It's a measure of Barrio's total commitment to her art that this accident looked nearly intentional, a fitting culmination to her solo's descent into despair. To watch Barrio perform a Solea — the flamenco form that, like her first name, means 'solitude' — is always to be a little concerned for her safety, at least emotionally, such is the slow-ratcheting, soul-baring intensity of her dancing.
But if the fall was artistically consistent, it was also concerning. Barrio is 60. When she returned to the stage during the ensemble finale, apparently uninjured, it was a relief. (A company representative said later that she wasn't hurt.)
Barrio won't have to sit out the rest of Noche Flamenca's Joyce run, but what is most remarkable about the company's latest production is how little it would change if she did. It would lose its boiling point and star turn, but apart from the opening and closing group numbers, that solo is Barrio's only appearance. As a close follower of the company for decades, I can't remember a show less focused on her.
'Legacy of Our Dreams' doesn't really have a clear focus. Press materials suggested that it would be an extension of last year's 'Searching for Goya,' inspired by the Spanish painter, but there's no mention of him in the program, and unlike the earlier show, the titles of the numbers don't obviously correspond to his works.
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