Flamenco Arts Festival’s Tablao Zano

A tablao flamenco is an intimate performance of flamenco music and dance set in a café, using a raised wooden platform (tablao) to amplify the sounds of the dancers’ feet. Tablaos flamencos grew in popularity in the 1960s, mostly in Andalucía, replacing the cafés cantantes (cabarets) that were popular from the 1860s through 1920s. 

“The idea for Tablao Zano,” said Artistic Director Andrés Vadín, “was to create an intimate atmosphere that would captivate the audience not only with flamenco music and dance, but also with the visual impact created by the full sound and lighting setup in a theater.” He added, “And I think we really achieved that. We created something truly beautiful. Something really special.”

And it really was something special. In between the intimate setting of a café and a large spectacle on stage, the black-box atmosphere of Center Stage Theater provides all the benefits of excellent lighting design in an intimate theater setting. 

Flamenco Arts Festival (FAF), now in its 27^th year, has presented numerous live performances, films, and community events celebrating flamenco and its cultural diversity. FAF founder and president, Vibiana Pizano, has promoted more than 50 U.S.-based flamenco artists, including the spectacular Siudy Garrido and her company from Miami during Fiesta. For Tablao Zano, presented October 10, Pizano invited the principal dancers from Yjastros, the American Flamenco Repertory Company of Albuquerque, New Mexico: Carlos Menchaca and Kayla Lyall, both of whom are powerful, dramatic, technical, and captivating performers. 

“I know them not only as outstanding artists, but also as wonderful human beings,” said Vadin. “Their artistic quality is truly unsurpassable, and I have great respect and admiration for both of them.”

Vadín, originally from Havana, Cuba, is a Latin-Grammy-nominated, prize-winning, flamenco-based-multicultural guitarist, composer, arranger, and music educator based in Los Angeles.  He is well known and loved by Santa Barbara audiences and dancers through his many performances, during Fiesta and throughout the year, and for his ability to seamlessly blend flamenco, Arabic, Cuban, and jazz styles. He opened Tablao Zano with a guitar solo that I can only describe as hauntingly heavenly.

Vadín selected the rest of the virtuoso musicians: cantaor José Cortés, award-winning flamenco singer of Gitano heritage, also well known to Santa Barbara audiences for his many years of performing during Fiesta and throughout the year, and Diego Alvarez, Latin-Grammy winning percussionist with lightning-fast hands.

The synergy on stage was powerful. After Vadín’s opening solo, Menchaca and Lyall performed a delightful, perfectly synchronized Bulerías.  Menchaca, a native of Texas, and Albuquerque-born Lyall, the two principal dancers of Yjastros, have been dancing together for more than 20 years.  They breathe together on stage!

Menchaca performed two breathtaking solos: Sequiriyas and the solemn Tarantos from the mines of Almería, both of the more serious cante jondo style. His slow, deliberate movements were punctuated with diamond-precision footwork and fast turns. On the heels of his recent performance at María Bermudez’ Convivencias, it was delightful to see him again.

Lyall’s first solo was a stupendous Alegrías, which she danced wearing a large, white-with-black lunares (polka dot) dress with an absolutely huge bata de cola, which she spun round and round, picked up and danced with as if it was a living partner, and kicked into various creative shapes. For her “Silencio” (guitar solo without percussion), Vadín played a hauntingly beautiful improvisation. For Lyall’s second solo she performed an impressive Soleá, in an elegant black costume. 

Of course, to complete the show, Cortés and Alvarez each had their own solos. We are so fortunate in Santa Barbara that we had all three — Vadín, Cortés, and Alvarez — playing for the Peña Flamenca at the Historical Museum on the Thursday before this show!

Vadín said afterward, “It’s a show that can be deep and emotionally powerful, yet it never loses its freshness and magic, keeping the audience entertained and captivated by what they’re experiencing on stage.” And it certainly was entertaining, captivating, and fascinating. After a standing ovation, the performers returned to the stage for encores amidst shouts of “Otra! Otra!” from the audience. 

When Yjastros artistic director Joaquin Encinas founded the American Flamenco Repertory Company in Albuquerque in 1999, he chose the name as a play on the word hijastros, meaning stepchildren in Spanish. He said, “It describes the true nature of our company: A new breed of flamenco that is both American and deeply rooted in traditional flamenco heritage.”

This spirit was powerfully present at FAF’s Tablao Zano! Check out their website to find out about future performances.