Mis Hermanas

A Flamenco Rosario production. At the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre on Thursday, May 1. No remaining performances

Flamenco is synonymous with passion, but Mis Hermanas is so saturated with personal meaning that it transports the art form into a new and even more moving realm.

It was impossible not to be affected by Rosario Ancer’s autobiographical story of yearning for the home and siblings she left in Mexico 30 years ago to pursue the call of clacking castanets. And another factor deepened the emotions radiating from the stage: her partner in life and work, guitarist Victor Kolstee, had a heart attack early this year that almost prevented the show from happening.

Mis Hermanas, subtitled Thicker Than Water: My Sisters and I, is an utterly unique blend of live flamenco dance and music with aspects of theatre and storytelling. Ancer, whose Flamenco Rosario has made her the matriarch of the art form in this city, pays loving tribute to each of her seven sisters through both choreography and projected family photos and home movies. She was the only one who left Mexico; the others still meet each Tuesday for coffee in Monterrey, and Ancer clearly longs to join them. Along the way, she tells her own tale of growing up the mayor’s daughter in a rural farming community; of the deaths of her parents that bonded her so closely with her siblings; and of leaving for a flamenco career in Spain. There, she met her blue-eyed tocaor, Kolstee, who eventually brought her to Vancouver.

Each “sister” provided a stunning study in how diverse flamenco can be, and how much an artist can bring to the form. Standouts were Mexico’s Marién Luévano (Rosalba), whose pummelling footwork could be as light as rain or as heavy as thunder; Claire Marchand’s Rebeca, whose pale arms and fingers undulated through the air in an ethereal tribute to that sister’s “celestial beauty”; and Montreal’s Myriam Allard (Lupita), whose intense emotion emanated from every fiery posture.

Ancer and music director Kolstee also scored a coup in bringing colourful cantaora “Angelita la del Lito” and her guitarist hubby, Manuel “El Lito”, straight from ancient Cádiz. Angelita’s wailing incantations and spontaneous Ale!s were probably sending chills up the spines of Yaletowners several blocks away.

The other elements, much more of a stretch for these flamenco artists, came together surprisingly well. The projected archival photos truly bring to life a time and a place—the grand era of festival queens and Sunday mass amid the citrus groves of small-town Mexico. Ancer’s narrative, with dramaturgy by Touchstone Theatre’s Katrina Dunn, has some visceral imagery (the sisters taking siestas on a cool marble floor in the blistering heat). Occasionally, it’s too trite (motherhood turns at least one sister into a “well-adjusted individual”). Local actor Carmen Aguirre’s narration is satisfactory, but I couldn’t help longing for Ancer—who dances as herself on-stage—to use her own voice for such personal memories.

These small flaws got lost, though, in the deep-felt passion, the duende, that engulfed the whole production. Anyone walking out of the Roundhouse had to be grateful Ancer pulled the threads of her story together before, as she said in the show, “the West Coast rains wash away my memories”. As for her creative powers, they don’t seem to be destined to fade anytime soon.