Días de Flamenco Festival in Tel Aviv will keep the Spanish beat going

To the casual music listener or the less well-steeped in Iberian history, the conjunction of flamenco dance with Arabic music may seem like stretching the cultural thread a little.

Adva Yermiyahu – known abroad as Adva Yer – begs to differ. And she should know. The Israeli flamenco dancer has been pounding the boards across the world from her bases in Spain and Israel for a decade and a half now.

And with Iraqi genes coursing through her veins she is well placed to have a balanced perspective on the gains to be made from marrying traditional Spanish dance with Inta Omri, the anthemic classical Egyptian song most readily identified with iconic songstress Umm Kulthum.

That intercultural confluence forms the nucleus of Yer’s forthcoming Haflamenca show which raises the curtain on this year’s Días de Flamenco (Flamenco Days) Festival, 30 years after its founding, at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv (March 28-30).

A festive gathering and art form 

The production moniker fuses the Arabic word “hafla” – party or festive gathering – and the source choreographic art form. “My grandparents didn’t use to listen to a lot of music, although they did listen to Umm Kulthum,” she explains. “Mind you, this production doesn’t come directly from that [familial baggage].”

Yer says she doesn’t have to rely on her personal backdrop to devise a work that accommodates Inta Omri with Spanish traditional dance.

“The connection between Arabic music and flamenco is completely natural,” she notes. “It is a relationship which is integral to the musical scales, the style of singing, and the style of musical accompaniment.” She has some local collateral, close to home, to support that notion. “When we began working on this, my partner, the guitarist and musical director of this project Manuel Cazas, said ‘Oh, these are two very similar worlds. They go together naturally.’”

Yer backs that up with some factual substance. “The roots of flamenco don’t just come from ancient Spanish music. And it is not just [the music brought by] the gypsies that roamed from India through France and got to Spain and Andalusia. It is the music in Andalusia [in southern Spain] that is the cocktail of the Arabic world – Al-Andalus,” she evokes the Arabic name for the Iberian peninsula.

The region in question, and the sounds that hail from the vicinity of Granada, Cadiz, Seville et al, which was ruled by the Moors between the 8th and 15th centuries, feed off a heady mix of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish sonic and cultural elements.

As far as Yer is concerned, her chosen dance discipline and Arabic music are indivisible components of the art form.

“This fusion – all these influences  – is what makes up flamenco. That makes the interface a natural fit.” There’s some street-level proof of that particular synergic pudding.

“Flamenco has been joined with Arabic music many times in the past, in all sorts of ways, including with Andalusian music with, for example, the [Israeli] Andalusian Orchestra [Ashdod],” Yer continues.

“There is one of the most famous singers in the history of flamenco music, Lola [Flores, who died in 1975]. She was from Seville and she [also] sang in Arabic. That link was always there. We can really see the Arabic influence in places like Granada.”

Yer says it is not just a matter of taking an instantly recognizable gem, with an eminently hummable lilting leitmotif, from the “great Arabic songbook” and melding it with the seductive sensuous moves that are the trademark of flamenco dance.

“Taking Inta Omri and adding in the fundamentally flamenco arrangements by Manuel, together with all the artists involved, and the dance on top of this Arabic song, there has never been a combination like this before.” She gets into the brass tacks of the structural underbelly.

“We take the thematic musical phrase of Inta Omri and work it into the [core flamenco tempo] 12-beat rhythm. We give it a flamenco-like twist while, for example, we wrote a letra, which is a verse of a song in Spanish, on top of the melody which is colored by Inta Omri. We dance that, but there is always the oud supporting, all the way through.”

Those sentiments and accrued combined heritages find their way into Haflamenca which, besides Yer, features Cazas, internationally renowned Israeli singer Mor Karbasi, seasoned vocalist Yehuda ‘Shuky’ Shveiky, singer and dancer Tuchfeld, and oud and kamancheh player Evyatar Morad with, intriguingly, Daniel Dor on percussion. The stylistic plot thickens. Dor is best known as a jazz drummer.

“All this fusion generates a very new sound,” Yer suggests. “It is very fresh and original.”

In a world in which just about every culture’s indigenous musical textures, tempi, and colors have been stirred into an ever-fuller cauldron of multi-layered seasoned brews played over terrestrial and online airwaves, that is quite a claim.

Yer says there are visual and musical thrills and spills in store for us at the Suzanne Della Center, although she is mindful of the current state of national emotional play over here.

“Right now it is difficult to call this production a celebration, but Haflamenca is an Arabic hafla and, basically, a flamenco fiesta – a flamenco party – joined together.” There is, she feels, something to be said for the disciplinary mix, particularly at this juncture in our regional continuum.

“During these hard times, I think this is a show that connects – connects people and cultures. I think that is an important value for us at this time.”

There is empirical evidence to fall back on for that hypothesis.

“The show was first performed at AshdoDance in 2022,” she reveals, adding that the head of that festival sowed the seed for Haflamenca. “The artistic director of AshdoDance, Avi Levy, came up with the idea of joining Inta Omri with flamenco. He initiated the idea and he got it spot on.”

Yer confesses to having a vested interest in the continued vibrant life of the Días de Flamenco Festival. “I am a member of the amuta (nonprofit). We are all flamenco women, female artists,” she explains. “We run it together with the ADI Foundation.”

The Adi in question is Adi Agmon, a passionate fan of flamenco and a gifted dancer who died at the age of only 23. The foundation was established in her memory by her parents Eva and David and Agmon, and for the past three decades, the festival has offered the Israeli public quality flamenco-based fare from here and abroad.

This year, in view of the ongoing security situation and national mood, all the shows have been created here, with a number of Spanish dancers and musicians taking part.

Hopefully, as Yer says, the event will serve to boost our morale, as well as offer a feast for the eyes, ears, and body.

For tickets and more information: suzannedellal.org.il/en/homepage/ and keren-adi.org/festival/