INTERVIEW: Attempting to understand humanity with Noche Flamenca

Martín Santangelo, the artistic director of the celebrated flamenco company Noche Flamenca, has several professional homes around the world. These are theaters and performing arts centers that have welcomed his company and its star dancer, Soledad Barrio, for several years.

One of Noche Flamenca’s New York mainstays is an annual residency at Joe’s Pub, a concert-performing-arts venue that is part of the Public Theater complex on the Lower East Side. The company brings their intricate dance work to Joe’s Pub Monday, March 21 through Sunday, March 27. Fans can expect to see Barrio, a Bessie Award winner and Santangelo’s wife, perform with several regular Noche Flamenca dancers and musicians throughout the week of shows.

“Well, it’s always extremely intimate, in your face, kind of classic flamenco with a lot of improvisations, and that’s always what they [the audience] can expect in general in Joe’s Pub,” Santangelo said recently during a phone interview. “And we’re bringing 10 artists, which is a lot for Joe’s Pub. I went a little overboard, but I thought … four dancers, two guitarists, two singers, a percussionist and an electric guitarist.”

The reason 10 artists is a high number for Joe’s Pub is because the stage, tucked in one corner with cabaret-style seating taking up the rest of the space, can be cramped for the flamenco dancers. However, this restrictive space can also present unique challenges, and there’s no doubt that Joe’s Pub is one of the most intimate venues to catch Barrio and company as they offer furiously dedicated flamenco moves.

“Even if there’s three people on that stage, it’s always a little bit challenging to get the sculpturing that I want,” said Santangelo, who directs Noche Flamenca’s performances. “There’s not a lot of territory, but we work a lot. The lights help me a lot there to sculpt out the geography.”

For the Joe’s Pub shows, Santangelo will draw some of his inspiration from a movie called La Ronde, directed by Max Ophüls, from the 1950s. The director called it a “great” and “amazing” film based on a play by Arthur Schnitzler.

“He did this play that was closed down by the police in Vienna,” Santangelo said. The sexual subject matter and numerous affairs depicted in the source material apparently didn’t sit well with the conservative, early 20th century audience.

“[Sigmund] Freud actually congratulated him [Schnitzler] because he felt that he said more than Freud was able to in one play than volumes and volumes of research papers that Freud had done about sexual repression,” the director said.

Santangelo plans to incorporate themes from La Ronde into Noche Flamenca’s performances at Joe’s Pub. The director mentioned the theme of “intimate desires for communication” always appearing no matter one’s wish to repress these feelings.

“That’s what the play is about, but what I’m doing, and this is why I’ve chosen 10 artists, is that I’d like to pair 10 artists in couples, in duets,” he said. “But the duets may be a dancer with a dancer, a dancer and a percussionist, an electric guitarist and a singer. It can be any and all combinations that I can possibly find. … Flamenco is such a personal art form that it really brings to the forefront the personalities of each of the artists, and it could also just be a blast watching these short, little, 2-minute, 3-minute duets. So if everything works out, I’m going to do a bunch of these little duets and classical flamenco.”

Trying new material in New York City can be risky; however, Santangelo knows the Joe’s Pub stage well and feels confident in that environment.

“I know the lights,” he said. “I know the people there. It does give me a little bit more freedom to try things out. The other wonderful thing about Joe’s Pub is that I’ve always changed the show up when I’ve been there. With Sole we’ve done, I don’t know, 15 times, and every couple of days I’m changing the show up because it’s such a delicious little stage that I begin to find little things to do on that stage. It does give me the freedom to try something and change it.”

It’s also a playground for improvisation, both at the individual artist level and Santangelo’s role as director. “As a director I can improvise, which means watch the show, next morning rehearse and try something else,” he said.

Santangelo said when Joe’s Pub first opened, Noche Flamenca was the first company to dance on its stage. It’s a legacy that has been maintained for years.

“We’ve been performing there if not every year, every other year, so it is one of our dearest homes,” he said. “And just to be at the Public is a great feeling.”

After the week performing in New York, Noche Flamenca will take a much-needed break. The company premiered its most ambitious and most acclaimed work in 2015. Antigona was a satisfying experience for Santangelo and the performers, and its return engagement was so popular it extended into 2016.

However, there’s no rest for these professional dancers and musicians; Noche Flamenca will soon enough head on the road to tour Antigona, which is a flamenco show based on the ancient Greek myth. Santangelo is in the process of finalizing tour stops, but fans can expect some international dates and engagements on the East and West coasts.

The success of Antigona still amazes Santangelo.

“I’m blown away,” he said. “Again everything occurs with time, so it allowed me the luxury of time to keep working on something. I mean up until the last performance we were rehearsing in the morning. It allows you to mature the show, which is the luxury of luxuries. The terrible thing in the business is that you have to get something up quickly, and then it’s judged. And then it’s over. This was incredible, and the support that we got from the press was unbelievable. … I couldn’t ask for more, and it’s one of the most delicious adventures I’ve been on.”

Jumping from Antigona to La Ronde seems to be indicative of where Santangelo receives his inspiration. He lives a full artistic life and is open to new experiences and new influences. This leads him to difficult challenges for himself, his wife and the company they lead.

“The more that I understand flamenco, the more I’m able to understand human beings,” he said. “I’m actually more open to things because of the flamenco. There’s a deep comic and tragic humanity, or understanding of humanity, that exists in the flamenco. … The only limits that exist in the flamenco is what we put on them ourselves, but the flamenco really, really is a profound search for humanity. And at the end of the day, any artist is looking for that, whether it be in flamenco, or kabuki, or music or whatever art form. That’s our search to respect and understand other human beings, so that’s why in the last 10 years I’ve been trying not to limit myself.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

Noche Flamenca and Soledad Barrio will perform at Joe’s Pub Monday, March 21 through Sunday, March 27. Click here for more information. Click here for Hollywood Soapbox’s past articles about Noche Flamenca.