Doors at 7:30 pm; Show at 8:00 pm
Tickets are $20 Advance / $25 Day of Show
As the after-party for today’s Berkeley World Music Festival on Telegraph Avenue, Ashkenaz hosts its own mini-festival “Gypsy Jazz Meets Flamenco,” with three different musical and dance groups: the Caminos Flamencos dance company, Barrio Manouche and Terceto Kali. This exciting collaboration among leading Bay Area groups in flamenco, Gypsy jazz, and progressive flamenco fusion was created by Caminos Flamencos’ Emmy Award-winning director/choreographer Yaelisa. Last year’s concert with these ensembles sold out.
Tonight’s party serves as the mid-point of the 14th Berkeley World Music Festival, which features dozens of acts (many of them Ashkenaz regulars) during the day June 10-11 along Telegraph Avenue on the street, in cafes and stores, and at People’s Park, all for free.
Yaelisa explains of tonight’s event, “Flamenco is nothing like any other music. It’s a participatory art form, a collaboration and very improvisational.” With musicians from around the world approaching shared roots in different ways, the night will feature each band separately as well as in combination with the others.
Caminos Flamencos features 10 dancers in a whirlwind performance of breathtaking color, costumes, irresistible flamenco guitar rhythms, and some of the most beautiful flamenco dancing this side of Spain, accompanied by Yaelisa’s musicians. In addition to many award nominations, Yaelisa and her troupe have received an Emmy Award, NEA Choreography Fellowship, and the 2004 Izzie Dance Award for Best Company. Her mission is to present flamenco dance with a contemporary approach that echoes the “nuevo flamenco” movement happening in Spain today.
http://caminosflamencos.com/
Terceto Kali plays the original music of award-winning guitarist Jason “El Rubio” McGuire, a confection of hard-driving flamenco, jazz, Latin and the musical experiences of its three members which includes Marlon Aldana on drumset and Adam Loudermilk on upright bass. www.tercetokali.com
Barrio Manouche is an acoustic San Francisco-based multi-national septet playing music that founder Javier Jiménez explains, “is inspired by the places we come from and the places we have lived, those that have come before us, and the nomadic Gypsy spirit. We believe that music is a primary form of expression and we use it to describe the world as we see it.” Barrio Manouche’s core members hail from Spain, Quebec, Brazil, France and Northern California. The band’s first recording, "Detrás de la Sombra," is most easily classified as gypsy jazz, but is also deeply influenced by a range of musical traditions, from the hot jazz of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli to the avant grade sounds of Ornette Coleman.
