Made in Spain: Flamenco Master Rafael Ramírez

metroweekly.com:

Fall Preview issue, opportunities abound this season to catch some of the world’s foremost flamenco dancers and musicians in and around D.C., including this month at GALA Hispanic Theatre’s 19th Fuego Flamenco Festival.Among the international artists on the festival bill — in addition to local favorites, the Flamenco Aparicio Dance Company — dancer-choreographer Rafael Ramírez, of Málaga, Spain, will make his GALA debut performing the solo work Lo Preciso.Accompanied in the show by singers Rosa Linero and Fabiola Santiago, guitarist Isaac Muñoz, and percussionist Alex Otero, Ramírez sparks a dialogue through movement exploring the quest for perfection — in art, work, or interpersonal relationships.“That is why in the show there are dance numbers that are more geared towards finding that artistic perfection,” Ramírez says over a Zoom call from Madrid. “But there are also numbers focusing on listening to each other, interacting with each other, and trying to find that connection.”Dramatically intense and imposing onstage, Ramírez comes off strikingly sweet and friendly discussing the show and sharing his expert opinion (via translation by GALA’s Dubraska Vale) on flamenco’s remarkable popularity with U.S.

audiences.“Flamenco is something that’s in the blood, in the temperament,” he explains. “From the roots, the inner being. And I think Spaniards and Americans have a similar temperament.

That’s why flamenco is so popular there, too.”That this is the 19th edition of Fuego Flamenco certainly bears out D.C.’s enduring love for the percussive, romantic art form born in Andalusia — the region in the south of Spain, where cities like Seville and Ramírez’s hometown Málaga lead in preserving flamenco traditions.