Spanish summer nights in Chicago

Posted on Thursday, June 9

Spanish summer nights in Chicago
By Alexander Perry for Extra News on June 9

With a chorus of foot-taps and hand-claps, mournful cantaores, and celebratory cheers, Chiara Magiameli and her students transformed the Charnel House’s low vaulted ceilings and close spaces into a Tablao Flamenco the last week of May. Similar to a cabaret, a tablao is an intimate Spanish cafe where one can enjoy drinks, friends, and flamenco dancing. Though the Charnel House is located west on Fullerton, the audience certainly felt transported to the electricity and romance of a Spanish summer night.

Now in its third year, Tablao Flamenco is a festival of flamenco that is the culmination of months of hard work by Chiara Mangiameli’s incredibly diverse students. Every single dancer, whose experience ranged from beginning to advanced, displayed enormous dedication and skill. This was all the more pronounced after nearly two hours of complicated choreography and song. As well, the musical accompaniment by percussionist Jim Collinsworth, guitarists Carlo Basile and David Chiriboga, and cellist Kinan Abou-Afach was outstanding.

The festival was composed of a number of dances and musical interludes. Working seamlessly with the dancers and musicians, Chiara’s choreography created an atmosphere that carried the audience away into the depths of heart-break, the flights of seduction, the mourning of death, and the daring romance of forbidden love. From a playful dance of chairs and the ruffling rumble of flamenco skirts, to the intricate manipulation of Spanish hand-fans, the staging and composition of each dance was superb.

Beginning with a bare stage, a few lonely instruments, four white chairs and a single blue light, the Tablao Flamenco began building in earnest, as dancer after dancer entered to join in the steady, rhythmic beat. In the opening piece, Tangos de Pepico, the haunting echo of Chiara’s melodic voice welcomed line after line of dancers as they filled the stage, like a cup filled just to the brim. The dance crescendoed into what felt like the defiant exhalation of a broken heart. As if in response Valgame Dios (the musical interlude that followed this opening dance) felt soothing, as if to mend the hurt.

This playful dynamic between music and dance, like a call and response, threaded the performances together. Of particular note was a piece titled Toque del Silencio, dedicated to the people of Japan. What began as a solo dance and song from the masterful Chiara Mangiameli soon spilled into an intense meditation and prayer on the fragility of life. Beginning and advanced students joined Mangiameli onstage in a dance that incorporated coordinated, audible breath into complicated movements and traditional Flamenco choreography.

While each piece had its own separate arc and powerful emotional tenor, Chiara and company were able to create a cohesive, thematic whole out of the night’s festivities. It was not all broken or defiant hearts, either. Though strength and empowerment certainly were key themes throughout the night, each piece had its own emotional resonance. From the flirty yet coy chair dance of Cuatro Guajiras to the aforementioned Toque del Silence, Tablao Flamenco moved through an incredible breadth of emotion. Arrangements by Abou-Afach and Basile added depth to each piece, sometimes a cello dirge, other times an adventurous flight of guitar.

In the end, what emerged was a journey that followed the joys and sorrows of love and death. In a final crescendo, a piece titled Rumbita Pa’ To’ closed the night with the resounding cheers of all the dancers, as if to replace the echoes of heart-break and death with the echoes of life.

Chiara Mangiameli is opening her own studio, Studio Mangiameli, at 4107 W. Belmont. If Tablao Flamenco is any indication of what is in store for the Studio, then it is a great day for Flamenco in Chicago.