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REVIEW: Alabina at Wolf Trap Saturday July 29, 2000by Juan Martín |
Once again, another fusion between flamenco rhythms and Middle Eastern music dazzled a sold-out crowd at Wolf Trap's Filene Center this past Saturday evening. Alabina, also known as Ishtar y Los Niños de Sara, electrified the stage during a 2-hour long, non-stop performance.Ishtar, the beautiful and exotic Israeli-native singer, captured her fanfare with her staggering voice and sensuous belly dance movements. Her songs, for the most part interpretations from original Arabic and Israeli favorites, could not have sounded better without the phenomenal and contagious rhythm of rumba flamenca. Los Niños de Sara, the French Gypsy quartet, took no time in getting the 6,000+ dance-starving-audience up on their feet clapping, singing, and moving every inch of their bodies along with the compás flamenco. Ramón accompanied on guitar, as did Antonio, the group's cantaor. Coco marked the compás on percussion and palmas and Santi once again crowned himself as the lead guitarist with thundering falsetas, formidable finger-picking, and shivering rasgueados. Ishtar stole the performance during a solo through a slow version of a romantic Israeli song in Hebrew. Her alluring voice filled the air of the evening taking the audience into a trance. As she left the stage with an unending roar of claps and cheers, the spotlight turned to the gitanos. Antonio shrouded himself with the purest form of flamenco, the cante. Accompanied at the guitar by Santi, and palmas and jaleo from Ramón and Coco, Antonio sang some of the most energized tangos I have ever heard. Needless to say, the audience was once again on its feet praising estos niños with a standing ovation. Ishtar reappeared with a new tantalizing costume and rejoined her gitanos on the stage to continue the party. The performance culminated with an encore of their ever-so-popular hit song "Alabina." Overall, the music repertoire was a replay of not only last year's performance, but also from the group's albums. We could only hope that, with such extraordinary artistic talent, Alabina could one day surprise their adoring fans with original material.
Editor's note: If you want more information about Alabina, take a look at some of these websites: My thanks to Juan for contributing this review. To read about other flamenco-influenced artists, go the Aflamencao page. |
