MAD. HOT. FLAMENCO!

[July 20th, 2005] Like great sex, the song, music and dance style that make up flamenco culture should be loud, hot and passionate. Reining in all that raw power for a six-day marathon of kicking and canto-ing has whipped the masterminds behind this week's Portland Flamenco Festival into a frenzied fever they hope will be contagious. For Portland's first-ever weeklong flamenco fest, Solo Flamenco brings dancers and musicians straight from Jerez de la Frontera, the Mexican birthplace of the so-called Spanish dance, to teach classes and to set the Newmark Theatre on fire at Saturday's sure-to-be-sold-out closing-night performance. WW spoke with organizers Diana Bright and Laurena Marrone (both are local dancers with Solo Flamenco) at Marrone's Southeast studio about what flamenco is not, why it's hot and why it's here. JOHANNA DROUBAY.

WW: Why is flamenco so popular right now?

Laurena Marrone: I think it began to gain popularity because of that Irish thing.

Riverdance?

LM: A flamenco dancer, Maria Pages, did a guest spot on the Riverdance video. She was so different from everything else they were doing, yet still very percussive. That's when flamenco started to hit its stride.

Riverdance is so...weird.

Diana Bright: Right, everybody comes out jigging with their arms plastered to their sides. So when Pages started dancing, it was sort of a shock. She wore all red [instead of green] and danced with her arms outstretched. But even then, you never really saw her flow. Flamenco is extremely earthy [and] grounded. Every time you place your foot, you don't touch it to the floor, you-[pounds her fist into her hand]. Nothing is light and airy. It's very definitive.

Why do you think Portland has become such a hotbed for this fiery dance form?

DB: It's completely in line for a city so politically active and aware. It shouldn't surprise anyone that we would be pulled to something as emphatic and clear as flamenco.