Flamenco--Without the Message

At the Irvine Barclay Theatre’s New World Flamenco Festival recently, three visiting companies from Spain and San Francisco unveiled the controversial new directions the art form has been taking. Juan Talavera’s local team, Flamenco Bravo!, will reclaim the traditional style Saturday at Saddleback College.

“Basically you’re going to see a whole bunch of really strong, happy flamenco dancers doing flamenco without a big message,” Talavera said in a recent phone interview from his home in Whittier. “This is just a lot of dancers dancing their own hearts out.”

Dubbed by one critic “the King” of percussive dance, Talavera will appear with troupe members Catarina del Sol, Cristina Villalobos and Artoro Nazzari.

Guest artists will include dancer Lourdes Rodriguez, singer Jesus Montoya and guitarist Jose Tanaka.

“Lourdes is one of the best-known flamenco dancers in the United States,” Talavera said. “Jesus is one of the finest flamenco singers anywhere. Jose is an awesome guitarist.”

Alongside such traditional flamenco artists, however, will be representation of a different spirit, one Talavera described as “Spanish stylized flamenco” danced by guest artists Jordi Caballero and Verano.

“Jordi has installed modern dance and jazz dance into flamenco to great effect,” Talavera said. Jordi and his partner choreographed a duet to a pop song. “It was beautiful, Spanish style, but done to American music,” Talavera said. “I told him I’d love to use it, but I don’t like the music. I’d rather have Spanish music. So he’s done the same thing to a piece by Tarrega, ‘Recuerdos de la Alhambra.”’

In addition to all these established artists, a younger generation of dancers will take part in the show.

“Timo [Nunez] and I did a show, ‘The Men of Flamenco,’ at Saddleback five years ago,” Talavera said. “Timo was a young kid, about 4 feet tall. He closed the show for us and knocked people out.

“Now he’s 18, he’s 6 feet, 2 inches and dancing like nobody’s business. You’ll see. This guy is fully professional.”

Timo’s sister, Beatrice, will also dance.

And there’s an even younger crop of dancers coming on board. Their soloist is 14.

“We have this little guy, ‘El Romero,’ [Ryan Zermeno] and his two sisters, ‘La Candela’ [Daniela] and ‘La Monica’ [Monique]. A trio,” Talavera said. “Ryan will be doing a solo. He’s, again, one of these little dynamos in flamenco. The kid is unbelievable.

“He knows exactly what he’s doing with the rhythms, with the music, with the cante [singer]. It’s totally amazing.” Very few American kids are dancing flamenco at that age.

“In Spain, it’s very common. Here, in the United States, it’s notIn Spain, they’re dancing when they’re 2 or 3 or 4 years old.”

Talavera knows what it’s like to start dancing in this country as a kid.

“I started when I was 7,” he said. “In a little garage-type studio in the middle of East L.A. It’s still there. It’s not a dance studio now. It’s a garage.”

He began going there to accompany his cousin and watch her as she took lessons.

“One day, the teacher needed a little boy, got me, stuck me in the middle of the girls and told me to dance,” he said. “I must have absorbed something watching. I did it.”

He started taking lessons, but in a variety of dance styles. “They did everything in that little dance studio,” Talavera said. When he discovered flamenco a few years later, at 14, he really became hooked. He began dancing professionally and when he was 22, he and two older associates founded the El Cid Flamenco Nightclub in Los Angeles, where he continued to dance until 1989.

At 62, he’s still dancing.

“I’m going to dance until I’m 150,” he said.

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Juan Talavera’s “Flamenco Bravo” will dance Saturday at McKinney Theatre, Saddleback College, 28000 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo. $22. ($20 for students and seniors.) (949) 582-4656.