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Flamenco is taking over the city once again this September, bringing dancers, singers and guitarists together for the 36th edition of the Vancouver Flamenco Festival.
Produced by Flamenco Rosario, the long-running festival combines performances, workshops, masterclasses, and free community programming, with this year’s lineup focusing on the flamenco community that has taken root in Vancouver and across BC.
The festival opens with free outdoor programming on Granville Island, where local, provincial and national artists will perform throughout the weekend. There will also be introductory classes for adults and children, giving the flamenco-curious a chance to try footwork, rhythm, and palmas before watching the pros do it.
Flamenco guitar also gets an evening of its own, with Montreal-based Philippe Jean sharing the stage with Salt Spring Island’s Iminah Kani. Jean is this year’s recipient of the Victor Kolstee Award, a biennial honour supporting flamenco guitar in Canada and further study in Spain.
Much of the festival’s performance programming comes from artists based closer to home. Jafelin Helten’s Raíz Viva moves between the deep-rooted traditions of cante jondo and flamenco’s more celebratory side, while Kasandra Flamenco’s United Elements uses dance, movement, voice, and sound to explore the idea of bringing fragmented pieces of the self back together.
Karen Flamenco, meanwhile, is borrowing from the ballet world with Jewels, a flamenco reimagining of George Balanchine’s work of the same name. Rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds are translated through traditional and contemporary flamenco.
One of the festival’s marquee productions is Nuevo IV: Lo Nuevo y lo Añejo, the latest instalment in Flamenco Rosario’s ongoing NUEVO series. The project pairs Vancouver artists with internationally recognized collaborators, with this edition welcoming Spanish dancer and choreographer Víctor Fernández and cantaora Mercedes Cortés.
The festival closes on a more communal note with La Música del Flamenco, featuring Cortés alongside Victoria-based guitarist Gareth Owen. The performance will be followed by a juerga, an informal flamenco gathering that blurs the line between performance and party, inviting musicians, dancers and audiences to share the room rather than simply watch from their seats.
For those who want to do more than observe, the festival also includes workshops and masterclasses in dance, guitar and cante. Fernández, Cortés, Owen and Flamenco Rosario artistic director Rosario Ancer are among the artists leading sessions for a range of experience levels.
When: September 19 to 27
Where: Various venues
Tickets: A mix of free and ticketed events; details here