The Aga Khan Museum, in partnership with TO Live, are presenting the 10th annual Duende Flamenco Festival: Vida Al Andalus from November 14 to 17. If you’ve never experienced contemporary flamenco art, you’ll be surprised at the multi-disciplinary festival and its range of offerings, which include dance performances, music, and film.
Al-Andalus refers to the Iberian Peninsula, the area the Aghlabid Moors occupied for almost eight centuries, and where flamenco originates. The art form’s historical influences encompass the region from Rajasthan through the Balkans, Ottoman Türkiye and North Africa. The focus of this year’s festival is the Roma community.
Here’s a look at the festival, including an interview with Farruquito (Juan Manuel Fernández Montoya), a renowned third generation Gypsy flamenco artist who will be closing out the festival with his performance of Kintsugi: Flamenco and Healing, commissioned by the festival, on November 17.
The Duende Flamenco Festival
During the day, visitors to the museum can check out free film screenings, TD Pop-Up Performances, and an interactive family pre-festival performance by flamenco guitarist Guillermo Guillén, singer Alfonso Cid, and local artists.
Four evening performances anchor the festival. They include:
- Lola! Gitanos de Jerez: A showcase programmed by Mario Gonzalez, evoking the essence of La Guarida del Angel in Jerez on November 15.
- Pellizco: A performance by Iván Vargas with Sevillian dance icon Nazaret Reyes on November 16.
On November 14, BREATH opens the festival with a Persian-Flamenco album release concert by Farnaz Ohadi.
Her album celebrates a journey of resistance through rhythm, and her fight for freedom — even the freedom to perform itself. She blends the vibrant rhythms of flamenco with reflective Persian poetry that examines love and loss. Empowerment over roadblocks is a recurring theme, and it’s not surprising.
Farnaz grew up in Iran, where women are not permitted to sing or dance in public. Based now in Canada, she uses her opportunities to act as a voice for those who remain silenced.
Her background including training in both Persian and Western classical music. In Canada, she studied flamenco as a dancer at first, but made a switch to cante, or flamenco singing. She feels that her story is distinctly Canadian, and represents the resilient spirit of many immigrants who have made this country their home, and flourished as artists.
In her work, the rhythm represents peace, the calm amidst the chaos of the world, a concept that can speak to many people in today’s world. Farnaz explores the tensions between personal freedom, cultural and religious norms via the metaphor of a love affair gone bad.
Joining Farnaz for the premiere of Breath:
- Antonio Najarro: Flamenco dancer and former director of the National Ballet of Spain
- Gaspar Rodríguez: Flamenco guitarist and composer
- Alberto López: Award-winning flamenco guitarist from Granada, Spain
- Amir Amiri: Master of the Persian santur
- Carlos Merino: Percussionist known for his expertise in diverse rhythmic traditions
Find details and tickets for all four performances [HERE].
Kintsugi: Flamenco And Healing Featuring Farruquito
The festival finale is a premiere performance of a work commissioned by the Aga Khan Museum.
Farruquito (Juan Manuel Fernández Montoya) is a third generation Gypsy flamenco dancer, and often called the greatest of his own generation. The world premiere performance blends flamenco with the Japanese philosophy of Kintsugi, by which broken pottery is repaired, and the joins decorated with gold dust lacquer to celebrate resilience and rebuilding. Adversity can build something beautiful.
LvT spoke to Farruquito and the show’s artistic director Ángel Rojas about the project, through translator Carmen Romero, who is acting as the guest curator for the festival.
“I’ve know Farruquito for many, many years,” says Romero, who is also Artistic Director and Principal Dancer of Toronto’s Compañía Carmen Romero. “He’s a stunning performer, creator, with an illustrious career, but more than anything, the power of his performance really resonates on a deep level,” she says.
Romero met up with Farruquito and Ángel at a flamenco festival in Spain last winter. She was there to look for acts to bring to the festival during what would be the 10th anniversary year of the Aga Khan Museum.
“We had this discussion, and we were looking for a special creation in honour of the 10th anniverary.” The idea of commissioning a dance work came up, an exclusive commission for the Aga Khan Museum’s tenth anniversary. “To have him create something unique for us is really incredible.”
For Ángel, co-founder of the New Spanish Ballet, and currently leading Ángel Rojas Flamenco Dance Project in Móstoles, the idea of blending the Japanese philosophy with dance came naturally. “The idea for the Kintsugi to mix with the flamenco, I [came on] this idea a long time ago,” he says.
“The philosophy to put golden between the (cracks) when a piece is broken is very similar to when you are broken in life,” he explains. “You try to in the flamenco way, you try to put together the destroyed things, the different parts.[…] through the power and the rhythm of flamenco. You put it in your soul, in your choreography.”
Flamenco, as he explains, is an art form that speaks directly to the human condition.
Flamenco comes from people who have lived very difficult lives, and their release comes through the flamenco, and the song. That comes out in one of the three movements of the piece. “The most profound, the most sad,” he adds. The performer expresses a deep lament, but then they pick up the broken pieces and try to mend their hearts through dance.
“It’s really a perfect fit,” he adds. The Japanese philosophy resonates not only with “Especially after everything that we have all been through, and we’re trying to repair our lives.”
“What they’re looking for, what they’re creating here […] is to use the deep tradition of flamenco within a very contemporary light, to make it relevant to today,” Carmen explains. It speaks to the enduring value of the art form. “People always ask me, Carmen, why does flamenco interest so many people who aren’t Spanish? It’s not a Spanish art form, it’s an art form of the human condition.”
For Juan, the process of working through the piece has been very personal. Farruquito called Ángel in 2022, after the pandemic, and asked him to direct one of his productions, so the two were already working together. “It went from opening a window in Juan’s house to opening a door in my house,” Ángel says. The two have grown close through the process. “Farraquito is the most important flamenco dancer of our time.”
For Farruquito, the dance relates very much to his father and grandfather. His father was Flamenco singer Juan Fernández Flores ‘El Moreno’, and his mother was dancer Rosario Montoya Manzano ‘La Farruca’.
“He was a very famous and well regarded singer,” he says of his father. His grandfather went by the stage name Farruco, and he would establish a distinctive style of flamenco dance that his family still upholds.
When did he decide to become a flamenco dancer himself? “I don’t remember,” Farruquito says, and laughs. His first memories are being part of a family that are all artists, and he never had a moment’s doubt about his ambitions.
He draws inspiration from his situation and his family to perform the new work. Losing both his father and grandfather was like having broken pieces within his life; it gave him a strong connection to the dance and its theme of repairing, and creating a new whole. In the dance, he pays tribute to his heritage, and the loss of both. It’s part of the emotional journey that the piece goes on.
“The flamenco interprets song, and the word we use for it is cante,” Ángel explains. “In flamenco, song is central. There are three main dances that Juan will do.”
As he explains, they are Alegrias, a happy song to express his joy; then, Siguiriyas, a deeply expressive style that is considered key to the flamenco art. Its origins lie within the Romani people, and it delves into sorrow and grief.
The third song is Solea. “It is very much a dance of defiance,” Ángel says. “Juan is an artist who transmit big emotion.”
Both Ángel and Farruquito are happy and honoured by the museum’s commission, and its celebration of the tradition and culture.
Farraquito hopes that audience members will connect with the emotions of the dance, and feel a sense of understanding. “We all go through this, we all have injuries and traumas that we have experienced in our lives, to be seen and recognized for that,” he says.
“The message is, that we can survive this.”
- Find tickets and more details about the performance on November 17 [HERE]
UPDATE (November 15): Due to personal health issues, Farruquito has been advised to suspend all professional commitments until further notice and will not be performing on Sunday evening. However, as the beacon of the Farrucos dynasty, he has chosen his brother, Antonio Fernández Montoya, better known as “El Farru,” to bring the artistic direction of Ángel Rojas to life.
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