(enlace) Performance fuses flamenco, Middle Eastern influences

BY ANDY DIAZ

aadiaz@herald.com

Ilisa Rosal knows dance. Sitting in her office, where there's an effigy of John the Baptist's head on a pike from last year's adaptation of Flaubert's Herodias, which she choreographed and directed, Rosal needs little prompting to discuss her medium with a casual lack of pretense.

Amid surprisingly absorbing lectures on castanets and finger cymbals, cante jondo (the inherently sad lament sung in flamenco, which according to Rosal has Semitic roots) and the many regional dances, she interjects details about her latest production.

Encuentro (literally ``Encounter''), which will be performed by Rosal's company, Ballet Flamenco La Rosa, Saturday and Sunday at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, tells the story of the forbidden love between a gypsy man and a Moorish woman set in multicultural pre-Inquisition Spain.

(leer +) [vía herald.com]