(noticia) Dance review Flaming flamenco fusion produces flash, lot of ego

White Bird - Nuevo Ballet Espanol delivers slick entertainment based on the folk form
Saturday, February 11, 2006
CATHERINE THOMAS

Michael Flatley, move over. There's a new contender for the title of Largest Dance Ego, and its name is Nuevo Ballet Espanol.

Much as Flatley brought Irish step dance to the masses, Madrid's Nuevo Ballet Espanol has its sights trained firmly on commercial appeal. The company's niche is flamenco fusion, an old art form jazzed up and stamped "showbiz."

In "Flamenco Directo," which played Wednesday at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall as part of the White Bird dance series, that impulse to modernize nearly translated to an ad campaign for flamenco action figures: dancers in photogenic poses, riffs that shamelessly pandered for applause. It's Spanish flamenco as product: slick, scripted, high-gloss entertainment. When they dance, the company is talented. At acting, not so much.

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