Dance Review:'Remangar 2'

The evening ran smoothly, with plenty of well executed traditional flamenco dancing by Keren and Avner Pesach.

By ORA BRAFMAN
flamenco feet 88 (photo credit: )
flamenco feet 88
(photo credit: )
Remangar 2 Keren and Avner Pesach Haifa February 17 Flamenco dancers Avner and Keren Pesach, onstage and offstage partners and artistic directors of the Remangar Company, introduced new and higher standards that may affect most local flamenco groups. The evening ran smoothly, with plenty of well executed traditional flamenco dancing by Keren and Avner and a decent group of six female dancers seriously committed to their craft. Substantial credit should go to the two musicians, Itamar Shapira and Tomer Elmaliah, and the big surprise of the evening - two impressive flamenco-style singers with the right throaty voices and deep passion: Yael Horowitz and Yehuda Shweiky, who gave it all and tore his heart out. The Pesachs spent years studying and performing in Spain and in recent years settled in Kibbutz Ramat Rachel, near Jerusalem. Their flamenco is the more traditional type: the basic, the pure. Both are good, but Avner is a bit too heavy and it affects the quality of his dance in the finer details, which he covers with loud heel clicking and very energetic, bravura gestures. Keren is a strong dancer and runs a tight ship. I can't remember another local flamenco company with such well poised ensemble work. Remangar 2 is structured like many traditional shows of its kind, with a series of dance scenes alternating with instrumental and vocal intervals, which allowed focus on the significant partnering of the musicians. Its choreographic effort was mostly geared to show off the extroverted technical skills and left little room for other aspects of the genre, the restrained nuances of control that hold back the inner tensions on the verge of eruption. This powerful side of flamenco was missing. The next performance is February 26 at the Jerusalem Theater.