Flamenco Rosario, L.S.D: dark and unforgiving
Rosario Ancer in Flamenco Rosario's L.S.D. Photo by Adam P.W. Smith
On March 16, Flamenco Rosario offered audiences a look at the second installation of L.S.D., a work in progress that will culminate in a 2011 collaborative performance with Kokoro Dance.
The piece was structured quite literally, exploring each theme in distinct parts: it opened with a prelude about the love between a mother and child, performed as a lyrical solo by one woman whose gestures indicated that she held an infant in her arms. Then four women took to stage, dancing the kind of sultry, provocative steps that audiences most associate with flamenco. Wrapped in red-flowered shawls and ruffled dressed, they strutted and swayed across the stage, fluttering crimson fans and casting long glances at the audience.
The piece closed with the arrival of Death – an older, black-clad woman (Rosario Ancer), her face draped in a black mourning veil, accompanied by a male singer. Her entrance scattered the younger women to the four corners of the stage. They watched with apparent fear as the black figure stormed and raged across the floor. Then, draping black shawls across their own shoulders, they joined her. The piece ended with its most enthralling gesture: the woman all in black cast her veil over the heads of the young women, who knelt before her.
As with Kokoro Dance's L.S.D., this performance felt like the early stages of a larger exploration. Although the work began with simple sentiments and conventional movements, the dramatic arrival and departure of the black-clad figure promises that in the completed work, there is something dark and unforgiving yet to come.