Families lined up outside C ECA’s Main Theatre seemed very excited to go to see this show, one girl was even dressed in a flamenco dress already. We filed in, found our seats and sat down to enjoy the show.
The introduction was a little on the long side and included a lone guitarist sitting and playing most skilfully for the first half of the introduction. A woman in full costume appeared and danced impressively and captivatingly along with the music. Shortly, she exits and a man takes her place. Eventually, they join each other in dancing while the guitarist shows us his mastery of his instrument.
The next step was to welcome the children on stage to learn the basics of flamenco. They were all very enthusiastic and while some of them struggled to grasp the more complicated rhythms of flamenco; they all enjoyed it immensely, as did their parents and families sitting in the audience watching them. Once they had been taught the individual parts of the dance, they were briefly whisked away to get into flamenco outfits and then they performed for the entire audience the whole piece, which resulted in rapturous applause.
Flamenco as a dance style, while not one of the most raunchy, is not, to my mind, immediately applicable to children of the age that this show is marketed at. While the introductory dance was brilliantly choreographed and wonderful to watch, I could not help but feel that the dancers were holding back from unleashing the true potential of the dance because there were children in the room.
That being said, any families with children under eight, who have at least a basic sense of rhythm, and enough of a vivacious personality to welcome a trip onto the stage should definitely go and see this show. It is a lovely way to spend a small portion of the afternoon and you never know, your child might be a secret flamenco fanatic.
