Bay Area Flamenco Festival presents Farruquito
Nina Menendez first saw Farruquito dance in the 1990s, backstage in San Francisco, where the boy’s celebrated grandfather, the great Gypsy flamenco dancer Farruco, was on tour with the hit Broadway show “Flamenco Puro.”
The kid, who appeared in Carlos Saura’s famous film “Flamenco” at 12 years old, was encouraged by his family to dance a bulería for friends backstage.
“Farruquito is from a dynasty of Gypsy flamenco dancers, with a tradition passed down through the generations,” says Menendez, who brought him here to teach workshops the past two years but couldn’t arrange to present him in performance with his full ensemble until now.
Most of today’s innovators are really doing fusion — more modern dance than flamenco.
Within the flamenco parameters, he has developed a personal style that’s different than other dancers before him yet also reflects his heritage.
Menendez, a flamenco singer herself and the daughter of venerable jazz and blues singer Barbara Dane, is also buzzed about the festival show March 9 at Herbst Theatre: a duo performance by the dazzling Cuban jazz pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba and the Gypsy flamenco singer Esperanza Fernández.
The assemblages of the late Bay Area maverick Bruce Conner and his wife, Jean, who’s still active, is on view through March 13 at Sonoma State’s University Art Gallery in the exhibition, Yes!
Some big names — among them guitarist John Scofield, saxophone Joe Lovano with his quartet, fiddler Regina Carter with her Southern Comfort band, trumpeter Nicholas Payton’s trio and the Delfeayo Marsalis Quartet — are set to perform at the 2016 Kaiser Permanente San Jose Jazz Winter Fest, which opens Thursday, Feb. 25, and runs through March 8 on stages in San Jose and Palo Alto.
Other bright spots include a 100th birthday tribute to the late honky-tonk pianist and organist Bill Doggett, featuring prized Bay Area keyboardist Chester Thompson, and the pleasing vocalist Jackie Ryan doing her “Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love” show.
Jesse Hamlin is a Bay Area journalist and former San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.