CANMORE – A little bit of Spain in the form of high passion dancing, music, and singing will be hitting a Canmore stage this weekend.
Fin de Fiesta Flamenco will bring its latest show Sempiterno to artsPlace Saturday (July 13) for the last time in the group’s current formation.
Flamenco itself is an art-based performance originating from Andalusia, Spain that combines dance with guitar playing, hand clapping, finger-snapping and singing. Fin de Fiesta Flamenco is comprised of six members from Canada, France and Cuba; Lia Grainger, artistic director of the group as well as a dancer, Dennis Duffin, musical director as well as guitarist, Lara Wong, flutist, Alejandro Mendia, singer, Hanser Santos Gómez, percussionist, and Deborah La Caramelita, dancer.
“It’s an interaction between the musicians and the dancers, so it doesn’t work in the same way as recorded music, you have to do it live,” said Grainger.
“You’re speaking a language that you learn and that the musicians understand. You have to understand the music very well, so you’re in a way a musician, too. There’s improvisation and interaction, kind of like jazz except with dance. That makes it more intense because you have to be completely focused on what’s going on in the moment for it to work and that’s really exciting.”
Fin de Fiesta Flamenco was created back in 2012 and the performance has been enhanced over the years in Spain’s flamenco studios with Sempiterno specifically created in Seville and Madrid. Every year since 2013, the group has brought back its performances to Canada, making its way across the country with 25 shows, give or take. While Grainger and Duffin cofounded the group, it’s the last tour Duffin will be a part of.
“This will be his last year with the group, so it will change things a lot. We plan to continue, but it will be a different project, I think, without him,” she said.
“It’s really sad because we all really like each other, we all have a really wonderful time and he is an incredible guitarist. He has this amazing, playful, really positive energy that just adds so much to the group and I think the performances … He will be missed greatly,” said Grainger, adding “he has the best parachute pants in the business.”
Grainger told the Outlook the bands 100th show will be in Salmon Arm two days before performing here in Canmore, a feat they couldn’t have reached without Duffin.
The show itself, Sempiterno, is described on artsPlace website as telling “the story of the magnetic pull of the flamenco art form, a pull that has drawn Fin de Fiesta Flamenco’s members away from the countries where they were born, and to Spain, the cradle of flamenco.”
It is something Grainger said the group has worked hard to embody.
“I feel like it’s kind of gotten to a new level of skill and a level of knowledge of flamenco. We’ve all worked really hard over the last year,” she said.
“It’s a more contemporary style of flamenco – it’s only 200 years old. In the way that we see it now, it’s sort of evolved out of other things and it just continues to evolve. And a big part of that is people like us, people all over the world. They’re studying and creating work, so we’re trying to have our own voice, create our own work, and I think this year … there’s pieces that very much speak to the fact that we are sort of outsiders creating this work.”
The show is one you won’t want to miss filled with intense emotions and beautiful talent the group has worked hard to capture as authentically as possible. For Grainger, success comes from understanding.
“If you understand the rhythm, you study the cante which is the singing, and you’re able to do your steps in the place where they go in the music very well,” said Grainger.
“It’s not necessarily about having perfect technique, it’s about understanding the way the music works and the way it goes together.”
Fin de Fiesta Flamenco will play at artsPlace this Saturday (July 13) at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available at www.artsplacecanmore.com. For more information on the group itself, visit www.findefiestaflamenco.com.
