Channeling Electricity

Whether it resembles the slow, building roll of distant thunder or the immediacy of an overhead lightning storm, flamenco is electric. This energy, however, is an intimate one, and one that benefits greatly from proximity.

Performance

Gala Flamenca

Place

New York City Center, New York, NY, February 26, 2026

Words

Sophie Bress

Gala Flamenca. Photograph by Christopher Duggan

This was the only challenge presented by Gala Flamenca, which opened the 25th annual Flamenco Festival at New York City Center. But, if there was ever a team assembled to fill the venue’s sprawling proscenium with flamenco’s authentic and vulnerable power, it was this group of extraordinary artists.

Gala Flamenca paired three flamenco dance veterans, Manuel Liñán, El Farru, and Eva Yerbabuena, with a (relative) up-and-comer, Juan Tomás de la Molía. The dancers were accompanied by a team of seven musicians and vocalists—several of whom tapped out some zapateado of their own—in an evening-length gala celebration of the Spanish and Roma art form in all its facets.

After a short introduction featuring all the artists, de la Molía took control of the stage with a subtle, commanding, and surprising new energy: the power of humor and cheekiness. His face bore all the expressivity of a mime as his feet moved freely and loosely, tapping and gliding at varying speeds—but always with laser-sharp precision. To watch de la Molía dance—interacting with the singers Manuel de Ginés, Juan de la María, and Sebastian Sánchez—was like watching banter between four friends. The comedic back-and-forth seemed at once improvisational and practiced, as if the four had years of familiarity.

Gala Flamenca. Photograph by Christopher Duggan

Liñán, who directed the evening in addition to performing, was another particularly powerful conduit of flamenco’s intangible energy. The first taste of his prowess was offered in an all-too-short-lived duet with Yerbabuena, in which both dancers wore long black dresses, moving with intention, mostly in shadow.

Liñán returned to the stage first, with a performance in a long, colorful gown decorated in ample ruffles and an exaggerated train. Liñán is known, among many things, for embracing both masculine and feminine energy in his performances. This evening, it was his seemingly drag-inspired depiction of the feminine that was most entrancing. He threw the dress around with powerful kicks and spins, the train blossoming like an opening flower. Above, his arms moved freely, undulating like water.

Yerbabuena’s solo, which came later, conjured images of growing trees, unfurling vines, and other movements that contain deep profundity in their gradual nature. Her limbs wrapped and extended from her trunk as she twisted and elongated as if in a time lapse—she seemed to be moved and shaped by natural forces invisible to audience eyes.

Gala Flamenca. Photograph by Christopher Duggan

As his male bravura gave way to moments of deeply felt tenderness, El Farru’s movement, too, contained glimpses of a similar subtle quality. Surely honed from his illustrious flamenco lineage (His grandfather was the seminal Farruco and his mother and father, La Farruca and El Moreno, are both well-known flamenco artists as well), his is a style that drips with meaning.

Also deeply moving was the singer Maria Rey, whose solo moments involved both dance and vocals. She convulsed as if possessed, her movement and song seemingly channeled from a force outside herself. This energy, made crystal-clear by Rey, was surely present the whole evening—the performers were merely a means for it to enter the world.

Sophie Bress

Sophie Bress is an arts and culture journalist and dance critic. She regularly contributes to Dance Magazine and Fjord Review, and has also written for the New York Times, NPR, Observer, Pointe, and more.

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