{"id":25974,"date":"2024-10-30T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2024-10-30T16:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/?p=25974"},"modified":"2024-10-25T12:33:58","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T19:33:58","slug":"dark-sounds-unearths-human-condition-through-innovative-flamenco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2024\/10\/30\/dark-sounds-unearths-human-condition-through-innovative-flamenco\/","title":{"rendered":"Dark Sounds<\/em> unearths human condition through innovative flamenco"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dark Sounds<\/i> is a series of flamenco literary performances by the members of Palabra Flamenco and poets Garth Martens and Jan Zwicky. In this unusual way of reinventing the flamenco tradition, two poets perform with a dancer and a guitarist who improvise and respond to the English-language poetry and storytelling. They dive into themes of family, love, sex, and the collective sorrows of our culture and planet, such as the climate crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think of jazz as being improvisational in chordal structures, flamenco is improvisational in rhythm,\u201d says Martens, who is also the Dark Sounds<\/i> producer. \u201cNo one knows necessarily what\u2019s going to happen, and the rhythm may change. There are signals that the dancer might give that the guitarist would pick up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martens says that there\u2019s a hierarchy within the inner structure of the flamenco performance.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Dark Sounds<\/em>, which combines poetry and flamenco, is running November 7 through 9 at Intrepid Theatre (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cEveryone follows the singer\u2014there\u2019s a respect for the words and the singing. But they will share the steering wheel in that sense,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are moments where we give control to the dancer, and everyone attends to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palmas<\/i>, the clapping accompaniment present in some flamenco, is a rhythmic support, allowing the dancer to dance on the off beats as the palmero<\/i> provides the underlying rhythmic architecture.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe clapper is never in charge,\u201d says Martens. \u201cThe palmero<\/i> is always serving the communal effort. But also, rhythm is the most important law\u2014you can do anything, but just stay in rhythm, or comp\u00e1s<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martens and the other members of Palabra Flamenco\u2014guitarist Gareth Owen and dancer Denise Yeo\u2014started working together as a group in 2017, performing at the Victoria Flamenco Festival. They went on to play at the Victoria Fringe Festival and Vancouver Fringe Festival in 2018. Martens invited Jan Zwicky to join them in their first Dark Sounds<\/i> performance through the Victoria Flamenco Festival in 2018, and after its success, they performed Dark Sounds<\/i> again in 2019. After several more performances, they\u2019re now booking for 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe experience just got richer every time,\u201d says Martens. \u201cWith flamenco, it\u2019s about improvisation\u2014structure and improvisation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In flamenco, it\u2019s common that the audience is just as much involved in the show as the performers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about relationship\u2014even the audience shouting jaleo<\/i>, or words of encouragement\u2014ol\u00e9<\/i>, agua<\/i>, hassa<\/i>. Even their breathing is a part of our show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martens has found that the post-performance conversation, which is led by therapist and writer Melanie Siebert, can be intense yet moving.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen a lot of counsellors, therapists, social workers, even death dulas coming out here,\u201d he says. \u201cThe resulting interview conversation has at times been so charged and has gone for over an hour. We\u2019ve had people come out sobbing and gripping Jan\u2019s sleeve because they\u2019re still working out their response to the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

This kind of conversation only really works in smaller spaces that are able to foster this intimate atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re interested in reality, intimacy,\u201d says Martens. \u201cIt would be way easier for us to go into a bigger theatre, but we\u2019re in a 45-person theatre\u2014everyone is close enough to hear the dancer\u2019s ragged breath after she\u2019s really exerted herself, and [she\u2019s] probably gonna drop sweat on them if they\u2019re in the front row.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result is that the close and gripping performances pull on all emotions, unearthing the dark and the light.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is grim and dark, but somehow it\u2019s still fun,\u201d says Martens. \u201cFlamenco is so suited to despair, persecution, hardship, as well as joy, lightness, mockery. Unlike a lot of popular Western art forms, it goes through the floor into uncomfortable emotions, letting us put on faces. In other art forms, we\u2019d be wanting to make it nice. Well, these are the faces we\u2019re often told not to wear\u2014flamenco wants those faces front and centre… People can look so beautiful making the ugliest faces.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dark Sounds
\n<\/i>7 pm Thursday, November 7
\n7 pm Friday, November 8
\n7 pm Saturday, November 9
\nVarious prices, Intrepid Theatre
\nintrepidtheatre.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dark Sounds is a series of flamenco literary performances by the members of Palabra Flamenco and poets Garth Martens and Jan Zwicky. In this unusual way of reinventing the flamenco tradition, two poets perform with a dancer and a guitarist who improvise and respond to the English-language poetry and storytelling. They dive into themes of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25976,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,320],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-october-30-2024"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25977,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25974\/revisions\/25977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}