Here in the city, you don’t need a plane ticket to experience the rhythm of Spain.
The New York Flamenco Festival is celebrating its 25th anniversary, bringing some of Spain’s most groundbreaking artists to the city until March 15. As the largest international platform dedicated to flamenco, the festival has presented over 200 companies to more than 1.6 million audience members worldwide.
Festival programming can be found in 16 venues of varying sizes across the city — including Joe’s Pub, New York City Center, Roulette and Bronx Music Hall — with performances that celebrate the endless love affair between the city of skyscrapers and flamenco.
“On the occasion of the Festival’s 25th Anniversary, we celebrate the true love story between New York City and flamenco,” founder and artistic director Miguel Marín said. “This year, we are humbled and honored to showcase major artists whose contributions to our art are legendary.”
Flamenco traces its origins all the way back to the 15th century in southern Spain. Today, it is characterized by rhythmic guitar music, energetic dancing and its signature flowing skirts.
Marín conceived the idea for the festival while studying in New York in 2001, after he noticed that there was almost no flamenco presence in the city. He organized the first festival that year to showcase how the next generation of flamenco artists use the form to express themselves.
“The idea was to show the wide range of approaches and visions that there are in flamenco today,” Marín said. “Flamenco is not something that belongs to the past, but the opposite: it’s something that belongs to the present.”
Although he grew up in Spain, Marín truly fell in love with the art form in New York while working on that first festival. Since flamenco is so closely associated with Spanish identity, performances in Spain tend to place more emphasis on tradition.
But the openness and curiosity of New York audiences changed Marín’s perception of what flamenco could be, teaching him the importance of watching a show with an open mind and connecting with the artist rather than trying to categorize the performance.
This year, the festival is dedicated to celebrating the master artists who helped open the doors for flamenco in New York.
One of the most famous of those pioneers is Carmencita, a flamenco dancer who was one of the biggest divas of the New York cultural scene in the 1890s. Portraits of her by John Singer Sargent and William Merritt Chase are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art — another one of the festival’s many venues.
“We are dedicating the festival to remember all these brave people who left Spain in different circumstances and really helped flamenco to evolve,” Marín said.
Whether you’re a flamenco aficionado or a newcomer, the festival has something for everyone to enjoy. The most important aspect of flamenco is audience connection, an element that Marín said is especially present in New York.
“This feeling that is created between the audience and the artist in New York is very special, and even more so considering that it’s not an art form that comes from here,” Marín said. “I think it’s fascinating, the level of emotional intensity that happens in the theater.”
Tickets and more information about the 25th Flamenco Festival are available online.
