Soledad Barrio Analysis

On February 13, 2018, spectators filled the Joyce Theater in anticipation of the celebrated company Noche Flamenca’s production of Íntimo. The curtains rose to reveal the dancers of the company diagonally seated, facing the musicians, and framed in dramatic lighting—an intense scene. As the voices of the singers filled the room with anguish, each dancer, in canon, portrayed a similar anguish through their own styles of movement, foreshadowing the intimate duets to come. In Íntimo, Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca utilized opposition to explore the inner workings of relationships within flamenco; throughout the performance, Barrio’s interactions with other company members held elements of struggle or resistance.
Early on, dancer Soledad Barrio performed a passionate duet with guitarist Salva De María that explored an important element of flamenco: the
Unlike her previous duets, Barrio performed her solo in a staged juerga setting in which the musicians and singers acted as her audience forming a slight semi-circle surrounding her. True to juerga tradition, “there [was] no separation between audience and performer” as everyone participated (Schreiner 25). True to flamenco tradition, Barrio’s movement was full of “enormous inner tension, a struggle” (Papenbrok 49). Her focus was internal while the musicians and singers focused on playing to her passionate movement. She no longer lacked the elaborate arm movement associated with flamenco nor did she move mechanically. In this culminating performance, the company showed how the relationships depicted in the prior pieces of Íntimo fit together to create an authentic flamenco