Last Saturday we went to the Angela Peralta theater for Romance de Tablao, a flamenco performance by Compañia Profesional Miura Expresión Flamenca, a Méxican dance company.

This was our first visit to the theater, and it almost wasn’t.  Paul had gone into the ticket office and inquired about tickets a couple of days before, and was told that they were sold out.  Lucky for us, our friends also inquired – the same morning – and were able to get tickets for all of us.  We compared experiences, what was said, etc. and still can’t understand why Paul was told there were none.  So, the lesson learned was ask twice!  And don’t think you can go to the internet to buy tickets, the website doesn’t usually keep an up to date calendar of events.  End of rant.

The theater is an absolutely lovely building.  It was restored in the late 1980’s, and is really worth seeing.  Our seats were in the center of the second balcony, and for $150 pesos were a great value.

The show started out with some excellent flamenco music – a guitar, flute, violin, and drums.  Two singers, Omar Pérez and Ana Elena Morales, sang beautifully, and the program began.

For me, the first part of the program was special mainly for the music and singing.  The dancing didn’t feel as emotional as what I had expected.  Not much passion.  The clapping seemed to mask the sound of the dancing and the sound was a bit muddy.

But the second half, starting with “La Conquista” I really began to understand the story they were telling, and the passion came through loud and clear.  Their feet just flew! I tried to get a picture of the backdrop to some of the scenes – Picasso’s Guernica. No luck, though.  The pictures above were taken with my camera set on “sports” with no flash.  (Sometimes I really want a better camera.)

There was the disappointment of a man taking a woman away from another man, a rose thrown in a man’s face,  a disappointed lover picking up a rose, and a dancing duel.  It was wonderful.

Afterward we enjoyed a couple of beverages in the Plazuela Machado, and I can honestly report it was a wonderful evening.

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