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.

comments

Featured

REVIEWS | Faye Arthurs

A Class Act

A ballet career necessitates lifelong scholarship. Professionals take a daily technique class that begins with the same pliés at the barre as absolute beginners. Most days at the School of American Ballet, New York City Ballet members are tucked into in a corner of the studio, honing their tendus alongside the top divisions.

REVIEWS | Rachel Howard

Liminal Moves

Jessica Lang is smack in the middle of a three-year stint as resident choreographer at Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet. It’s an excellent artistic match that deserves to be followed closely, because both Lang and PNB merit a higher national profile.

REVIEWS | Robert Steven Mack

Golden Hour

The close-knit ballet scene in San Diego was dealt a blow when California Ballet, the company Maxine Mahon founded in 1968, folded in 2020. Insiders tell me the pandemic wasn’t entirely to blame, but since then, Golden State Ballet, still wet behind the ears, has risen in its place.

REVIEWS | Karen Greenspan

Divine Summer

Now in its fifth year, New York City’s Lincoln Center Summer for the City is going all out for dance. This year, the festival will inaugurate the much-anticipated Lincoln Center Contemporary Dance Festival in Alice Tully Hall, featuring five international companies, as well as a new outdoor contemporary dance series called Dance Encounters, presented outside on Hearst Plaza.