A Flamenco dancer and a coal miner walk into a bar. The bartender, realizing that there is no punchline here, offers them a drink; for tonight they’re celebrating a beautiful, if not unusual union.
Flamenco music and dance, an art form that originated in Southern Spain, can trace its path back for centuries. It is rarely presented, however, in this part of the world, but thanks to Halifax’s Flamenco en Rouge we’re able to get a taste with “Tierras oscuras,” their latest production. It’s spicy and explosive; moody and mysterious.
The members of Flamenco en Rouge are no strangers to Flamenco’s allure. The six artists who make up the troupe know it intimately. Since being drawn to it they’ve studied it and travelled the world over to try and unravel its spell.
It’s our good fortune that Matthew Martin (music director/guitarist), Brenley Heaver (vocalist/storyteller), Ruth Pacis (dancer), Marina Roussakova (dancer), Csaba Kanyas (percussionist), and Martine Durier-Copp (dancer/choreographer/artistic director), have all followed its trail to Halifax and crafted “Tierras oscuras,” a multimedia presentation that marries mining and Flamenco dance in a way that feels at once wonderful and familiar.
Let’s start with something we do know a bit about: mining. The mining industry has touched Atlantic Canada in countless ways. We tell stories and sing songs about its triumphs and tragedies, and many of us are no more than a couple hours drive from what is or used to be, a working mine. All over the world mining has driven immigration since people first started digging into the earth. Miners go where the mines are. People need to work. People need to eat, and it is people who are essentially at the heart of all of this.
It’s only after witnessing the troupe’s collaboration with the Beaton Institute’s Daniel Farrow that you start to see some real parallels between mining and dance. Farrow was able to provide digital projections of photos obtained from the Cape Breton Miners Museum, and “Tierras oscuras” is a welcome burst of colour set against the stark images of the lives of miners.
Really, that’s what this is all about. Artistic director and dancer Martine Durier-Copp recalls a quote which she loosely translates as, “why does a miner even have a heart when he knows he will face such a poor death?” Hardship in the mine, no matter where it is is a way of life and you’re constantly surrounded with darkness and danger. Each time you come to the surface is cause for celebration, and so the music and dance of those celebrating become so tightly woven into the fabric of the culture that it doesn’t matter if it’s expressed through Spanish Flamenco or a Cape Breton square set.
It’s percussive, lively, and infectious and if you’re still not convinced, Durier-Copp is quick to point out that Flamenco is such raw expression that it’s not hard to find the plot.
When Flamenco en Rouge took the show to Cape Breton for its debut it was easy to find the plot. The crowd at the Cape Breton Miners Museum had known it for years. Fear, loneliness, homesickness, and doubt are things that every miner knows and so it was important to do the first show there. If you missed it, you will have another chance on November 16th and 17th at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax.
Flamenco en Rouge offers workshops in Halifax to share and inspire this incredible art form and after you witness what they have created you will want to trade your ‘ehs’ for olés and dust off those dancing shoes.