01/06/12

Story by Diane Carroll, 913-469-3425

Ensemble Español

Spanish dancers sweep audiences into 'transcendent experience'

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. – A Spanish dance ensemble that has been described as sensual and breathtaking will appear at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3, in the Carlsen Center's Yardley Hall at Johnson County Community College.

Tickets to the performance by the Ensemble Espanol Spanish Dance Theatre are $40 and $30. They are available through the college box office at 913-469-4445 or at www.jccc.edu/TheSeries. A member of the dance company will talk about the performance at 7 p.m. in Polsky Theatre.

The Ensemble Espanol Spanish Dance Theatre, established in 1976, was the first Spanish dance center in the United States to gain in-residence status at a university. In 2011, it celebrated 35 years of residency at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago under the auspices of the department of music and dance.

Twenty dancers and three singers from the 40-person theatre center will grace the stage with guest artists Christian Lozano and Paloma Gomez. The dancers will present various kinds of Spanish dance, including classic, folkloric and flamenco. The flamenco is a passionate form known for its sweeping arm rhythms, hand clapping and foot stomping.

Dame Libby Komaiko, the founder and artistic director of Ensemble Espanol, choreographed half of the company's extensive repertoire of more than 125 works and produced major international flamenco ballets and folkloric suites with guest artists from Spain. Irma Suarez Ruis serves as associate artistic director.

A reviewer for the Chicago Tribune described one performance as "exciting, sensual and breathtaking." And a reviewer for the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that the "meticulously structured concert moved at a scintillating and seductive pace" and "into the realm of genuine human emotion…a transcendent experience."

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