Stir Cheat Sheet: 5 shows to set emotions on fire at the Vancouver Flamenco Festival

Montreal-based guitarist Philippe Jean, Spanish innovator Víctor Fernández, and more hit Flamenco Rosario’s annual celebration

By Janet Smith

Victor Fernández. Photo by Beatrix Molnar

Singer Jafelin Helten

The Vancouver Flamenco Festival takes place at various venues from September 19 to 27

EACH SEPTEMBER, Flamenco Rosario livens up the beginning of fall with the sound of stamping feet, clapping palmas, and vigorously strumming guitars.

This year’s Vancouver Flamenco Festival boasts some stunning musicians, innovative choreographic works, and a star male dancer coming all the way from Bilbao. Here are a few of the highlights:

Iminah Kani and Philippe Jean

#1

Philippe Jean and Iminah Kani

September 22 at Alliance Française Vancouver

In this flamenco guitar concert, two standout Canadian artists join forces to bring the rhythmic rasgueados and picados. Montreal-based guitarist Philippe Jean has won this year’s Victor Kolstee Award, a prize for emerging guitarists named for the well-known late musician who founded Flamenco Rosario with his wife, Rosario Ancer. Trained in both classical and flamenco styles, Jean has studied extensively in Spain, taking deep dives into lesser-known forms like the fandango and its derivatives. Jean will perform on the same program as Iminah Kani, the Victoria-by-way-of-Salt Spring Island resident who was the recipient of the inaugural 2024 Kolstee Award. A rarity in a music form that’s dominated by men, Kani used the prize to study flamenco at the renowned Fundación Cristina Heeren in Seville, Spain. Alliance Française copresents with the VFF.

Jafelin Helten

#2

Raíz Viva

September 23 at Performance Works

Singer Jafelin Helten was born in Venezuela and later moved to Vancouver, becoming a centrepiece of the local and international flamenco scene for more than two decades. The spellbinding cantaora here explores “raíz viva”, or the “living roots” of flamenco, starting in the timeless melancholic traditions of cante jondo—“deep song”, as in the intensely emotional vocal style of traditional flamenco music from Andalusia. From there, she moves into more joyful and contemporary terrain.

Kasandra Flamenco

#3

United Elements—Kasandra Flamenco

September 24 at Performance Works

Led by dancer Kasandra “La China”, the Kasandra Flamenco Ensemble draws together rhythm, voice, palmas, and thundering feet, bringing a contemporary sensibility to the ancient art form. La China first trained with Oscar Nieto and has travelled to Spain numerous times over the past three decades to deepen her flamenco skills. She’s known for taking the dance form to new heights, whether by combining it with Egyptian belly dance or fusing it with Cuban rumba.

Jewels

#4

Jewels

September 25 at Performance Works

Karen Pitkethly is another high-profile Vancouver dance artist who puts her own innovative touches on flamenco. The creative force behind Karen Flamenco hits the Vancouver Flamenco Festival with a production that reimagines George Balanchine’s Jewels, a legendary work in three acts (“Emeralds”, “Rubies”, and “Diamonds”) that debuted in 1967 and is considered one of the first abstract ballets. Expect glittering, gem-like dresses and ruffles that catch the light in a performance that brings together impassioned traditional movement with the sleek abstraction of contemporary dance.

Victor Fernández. Photo by Beatrix Molnar

#5

NUEVO IV—Lo Nuevo y lo Añejo

September 26 at Performance Works at 4 and 8 pm 

Granada-raised, Bilbao-based dancer and choreographer Víctor Fernández is a huge draw at the NUEVO series that has long fostered new ideas from around the world. Here, collaborating with Flamenco Rosario, the Spanish sensation will set the stage on fire with boundary-pushing contemporary innovations with deeply traditional roots. Living and breathing flamenco since he was a young child in Granada, the fast-rising talent has performed with legends such as Rafaela Carrasco, Rafael Aguilar, and Eva Yerbabuena in major theatres from Spain to Taiwan, and is considered a major trailblazer in modern flamenco choreography. In this show he’s joined by celebrated Spanish cantaora Mercedes Cortés, with an opening performance by Seattle’s Semilla Flamenca.  

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