After Sarah Durkee, Director of Public Programs for the Corcoran, and Vic Cohen, business manager for Ziva's Spanish Dance Ensemble, made some introductory remarks, the lights dimmed and the performers took their place as dancer Raúl Ortega doing double duty as a cajón player marked the compás of jaleos.

Each of the dancers made a very brief entrance, danced a few compases and blended back into the tablao scenery made up of a white-linen covered table on stage left with two bottles of wine (presumably filled with water) and a few glasses, mantones and a red cape pinned to the walls. The musicians were on stage right and included Raúl on cajón, singer Ruben el Viejo and guitarist Cristian Puig.

The first solo of the evening was performed by Carmel Shelly: an alegrías. Actually I have performed with Carmel at Las Tapas, so I recognized bits and pieces of the choreography from before. But this time, here at the Corcoran, she was performing with not only an amazing guitarist but also a very inspiring young singer. So for me, it was a great pleasure to finally enjoy Carmel's performance as it was really meant to be presented.

Next up was a fandangos de Huelva performed by Ruben and Cristian. Something light and accessible and also an opportunity to focus on the cante and the guitar. Cristian kept the accompaniment very sparse and subdued for the first few coplas and gradually played more stridently towards the end. Ruben's voice was crisp, clean and strong--kinda reminded me of Miguel Poveda.

The next number was tientos featuring dancers Yolit Kachlon and Megan McGill. Performed to an instrumental version with one guitar playing the cante melody and the other providing the chordal accompaniment. Carmel entered as another instrumental version of tientos began and percussionist Gilberto Campello quietly walked on carrying his cajón and tambourine.

As the recording faded out, Carmel began a footwork solo accompanied by Gilberto on cajón. The string inside the cajón, which provided the snare drum kind of effect, was especially loose. So combined with Gilberto's vigorous hand-drumming on the face of the cajón, the resulting bassy snarey sound kind of reminded me of the percussion I might hear in Carnival in Río de Jainero. And it turns out Gilberto is from Brazil!

The whole time Carmel was doing her footwork solo (in tangos compás), I was wondering when Gilberto was going to incorporate the tambourine. It wasn't until Carmel finished her footwork and left the stage that we in the audience would find out what an amazing percussionist Gilberto is. He managed to perform a full solo on nothing more than the tambourine. But he got quite a range of sounds. He started by shaking it in his left hand, as his right hand would strike the face on various syncopations achieving a tone reminding me of a dumbek.

Then he changed to tabla technique rapidly drumming individual fingers alternating between the left and right hands creating a mesmerizing eight beat pattern. I kind of lost track of the various techniques cuz I wanted to get away from analyzing and just enjoy it. Anywayz, he continued to make an otherwise monotonous sounding instrument into something very musical. For the climax, he struck an individual round mettalic rattle on the tambourine making it spin so fast it made a shimmering sound that gradually faded out as the audience sat there in silence dumbstruck by the range of sounds Gilberto pulled out this seemingly simple instrument.

Next was a percussion group number featuring Yolit, Carmel, Ziva and Megan on four cajones. I had seen this number before (last time at the Millenium Stage last September) and it never ceases to bring a smile to my face. For one thing, I've never seen a choreographed cajón number that manages to be visually, musically and choreographically interesting.

Next was an instrumental tangos featuring Cristian with palmas by Ruben and cajón by Raúl. Tons of beautiful catchy falsetas and fresh modern harmonic ideas.

Dancer Jorge Navarro really knows how to add drama to a performance as was evident in his entrance, to his interaction with Yolit as his love interest to his interpretation of soleá. His style is very masculine, very elegant. You just know he has all this energy bottled up inside but he teasingly only lets it out little by little. While most younger dancers would go for more grandiose movements, his llamadas often consisted of nothing more than a subtle yet decisive turn of his head. At the end of his dance, he removed his scarf, dropped it at the feet of his love interest, Yolit. As Jorge gallantly walked offstage, she picked up the scarf, cupped it in her hands, brought it up to her nose to smell it and blew a kiss back to Jorge as she smiled flirtatiously. Kudos to Yolit on her dramatic skills--I was convinced!

Dancer Ziva was next in a performance of Peteneras with guitar accompaniment and cante by Cristian. I should add that because this concert also happened to be taking place on Holocaust Rememberance Day, the show and this dance, as Vic mentioned in his opening remarks, was dedicated to Ziva's parents who are Holocaust survivors.

Dancer Raúl Ortega also made a dramatic entrance this time with Megan as his love interest. Taking his time putting on a suit jacket (in red of course), he took the audience by surprise when he launched into a flurry of footwork for his opening llamada in alegrías. At times, his footwork was so furious, his pant cuffs rose up above his flamenco boots high enough to show a brief glimpse of his lower calves. His dancing kind of reminded me of Farruquito--you know where he'd alternate between posing as he caught his breath before going back into more fast footwork. Raúl with his more flamboyant high energy style was clearly the counterpart of his fellow male dancer in the show, Jorge. This idea of using two dancers that contrast and complement each other is something that Ziva effectively used in her show at the Milennium Stage last September when she paired Jorge with dancer Antonio Hidalgo.

Where Jorge would use a subtle turn of the head for his llamada, Raúl would valiantly go for rapidly executed consecutive turns (I lost count after four). On a personal note, I had done shows on this stage years ago with the Spanish Dance Society and I know for a fact that the stage is very slippery. I had to sit up on the edge of my seat as Raúl danced with almost reckless abandon. I was thinking, "Omigod, this dude is going to slip on that floor." And at one point, he almost did slip when he caught himself dancing at the very edge of the stage and had to quickly pull back. At that moment, amidst all the footwork, guitar, cante and palmas, I still managed to hear many members of the audience gasp in excitement. Despite it all, I think Raúl was very aware of the slipperiness of the floor and knew what he was doing all along, pulling out all the stops for the full dramatic effect. He brought the house down with his performance.

After that, the rest was just the customary fin de fiesta bulerías. Actually Ziva, Jorge and Raúl danced a brief soleá por bulerías as a trio before Carmel, Megan and Yolit joined in for the closing bulerías.

All in all, the show was about 90 minutes long with no intermission. There were occasional glitches where the transitions between numbers went on longer than felt comfortable, not to mention one or two lighting cue errors, but otherwise the program was well-paced with enough variety in energy level to maintain the interest of the audience. Although I was invited to see the show as a guest of Ziva, the theatre management did not allow me to take photos. So sorry, no pics, except the ones I took outside the Corcoran.

End of review. For more information about Ziva and her upcoming shows, visit her website.

OK, so I lied. I included more opinionated commentary than I promised. But if you were in the audience too, please feel free to add your own comments. Thanks!

View of the Corcoran from 17th St. April 15, 2007 7:35pm

It's almost 1:00am on Monday. Just got a few more things to do before going to bed. As for tonight (Monday), I'll be performing at Cafe Citron. Singer Gerard Moreno is out of town this week, so I'll have two dancers instead: Mariya and Pam de Ocampo. See you there. Ciao for now!