Noche Flamenca

Thursday, October 2, 2025 • 7:30 PM

Founded in 1993 by Martín Santangelo and Bessie Award–winning dancer Soledad Barrio, Noche Flamenca is celebrated worldwide for its deeply emotional, authentic flamenco performances. This performance features Searching for Goya, a bold and theatrical tribute to the Spanish painter, blending dance, music, and storytelling in a series of powerful vignettes that create a communal, spellbinding experience reflecting flamenco’s raw intensity and cultural roots. Noche Flamenca regularly performs at Lincoln Center, the Joyce Theater, and across the globe, and is equally committed to education, offering outreach programs that share flamenco’s history and spirit with communities of all backgrounds.

soledadbarrioandnocheflamenca.com

Photo Credits: Nora Pitaro

GOYA AND EMOTIONS OF THE BODY IN DANCE

A CLOSER LOOK AT NOCHE FLAMENCA’S SEARCHING FOR GOYA

Francisco de Goya is unique among artists for his innovative use of mark-making and composition. His works capture a tumultuous range of emotions, preserving and presenting the unique cultural psyche of Spain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Noche Flamenca: Searching for Goya presents a new interpretation of Goya’s artworks through the artistic medium of flamenco dance. The following is a small selection of the many works closely studied by the company for the creation of Searching for Goya. We invite you to examine each work as you meditate on the connections between image, mark-making, emotion, and dance!

Los Ensacados (The Men in Sacks), ca. 1816-1819, etching and aquatint

Image Credit: Yale University

Here Goya splits his composition into a darker top half and a lighter bottom half. A group of human figures are clustered together, wrapped in fabric or sacks. Consider how the placement of each figure highlights the restriction of the garments. How might discipline and restricted movement express emotion in a dance setting?

Lluvia de Toros (Raining of Bulls), c. 1820, etching and aquatint

Image Credit: Minneapolis Institute of Art

Here Goya creates a flurry of dancelike movement in the absence of human figures. Composed atop a dark, uniform background, these bulls seem to hang suspended in time. Their movements are captured by their energetic poses and layered placements within the composition as they “rain” down.

Disparate Puntual (Punctual Folly), 1816-1823, etching and aquatint

Image Credit: Yale University

This etching displays the power of contrast. The sharp angularity of the tightrope contrasts with the natural curvature of the dancing human form atop the horse. The densely populated, dark background also contrasts with the negative space used to give form to the figures in the foreground. Overall a sense of dizzy tension is created in this dancing scene.

La Romería de San Isidro (The Pilgrimage to San Isidro), 1820-1823, mixed media on mural transferred to canvas

Image Credit: Museo del Prado

This work employs a unique media shape and composition to create a sense of movement and linear progression. Notice how the long, thin canvas lends itself to the depiction of landscape, and creates a sense that the tentative human figures are progressing along on their pilgrimage.

Perro Semihundido (The Drowning Dog), 1820-1823, mixed media on mural transferred to canvas

Image Credit: Museo del Prado

This image, in contrast to many of Goya’s group compositions, maintains a sense of solace and loneliness through a relative lack of suggested movement and the placement of a singular figure. Notice the unique composition, filled almost entirely with open expanses of cloudy color. How might the emotion of this piece change if the image became crowded with moving figures?

Buy Tickets

Date

Thursday, October 2, 2025 • 7:30 PM

Tickets

$30.50–$58

Venue

Smothers Theatre