Skokie is a suburb on the north side of Chicago with a cemetery on one side of the street and a cosmetic surgeon on the other, where a designated forest preserve is a square patch of land about one residential block in length and width. Signage abounds: “No Trespassing” in the parking lot by a strip of chain stores, within which “Shoplifters will be prosecuted” is repeated accusingly at eight-foot intervals. “Scan here to shop” reads a bench in the Northshore Sculpture Park, unattractively fenced off from the river, whose rush competes with the whoosh of cars barreling by. “Watch for falling snow and ice” reads a large yellow sign posted—on two sides!—of a tree in a school playground.
The “World’s Largest Village,” once called Niles Center, renamed “Skokie,” Potawatomi for “Big Swamp,” in a 1940s vote (the last Potawatomi of the region left in 1835), where the ACLU once defended neo-Nazis’ right to march through a city known as a settlement for Holocaust survivors. Within the Illinois Holocaust Museum, whose mission is “Remember the past, transform the future,” staff are territorial (“She gave you a lot of information. I’m supposed to give information,” bristled the worker at the information desk, irritated by the one at the ticket counter) and unwelcoming (a white guard directed an impatiently nasty dismissal before closing time solely towards this writer, tolerating with grace the presence of a white woman lingering further behind).
Escape (or at least escapism) from village life may have driven Chicago-born, Evanston-bred Dame Libby Komaiko to dance. First inspired by that fantasy world tour of a ballet the Nutcracker, Komaiko, who was Jewish and of Lithuanian and Russian descent, pursued a career with José Greco’s Spanish Dance Company before founding Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Theater in 1975.
Last weekend, Ensemble Español presented its annual Flamenco Passion concert at North Shore Center for the Performing Arts to kick off its 47th American Spanish Dance and Music Festival, which continues through June 24 at Northeastern Illinois University with classes in escuela bolera, folklore, and flamenco. These styles were showcased in a behemoth of a mixed bill with 11 pieces, including premieres by guest artists Irene “La Chiqui” Lozano and Isaac Tovar and live music by flamenco musicians Curro de Maria (guitar), Paco Fonta (vocals, guitar), and Jose Moreno (vocals, guitar, percussion), that ran the range of folkloric charm to polished theatrical showstoppers.
The evening opened with guest artist Raquel Gomez’s Sur/South (2015), which begins cinematically with Jonathan Pacheco entering the stage alone, crisscrossed with beams of light, to strike a pose under a special that glows, then recedes like a flashbulb in slow motion (original lighting design by Nathan Tomlinson, reinterpreted by Dustin Derry). Others enter and join with subtlety, majesty, and self-consciousness, the pacing of bodies across the stage reminiscent of a runway show, emphasizing the elegance and abstraction of the classical line.
This dramatic beginning heralded a series of impressive shifts of mood and mode in the ensemble works that proceeded over the course of the evening—moving back in time in the folkloric Fantasia Suite Regional (partly choreographed by Paloma Gomez and Cristian Lozano), which showcased traditional dances from Galicia, Extremadura, and Valencia, and forward in artistic director Irma Suárez Ruiz’s Rendición/Rendition, which starts with thunderclaps and strobes of lightning lasering through space, then presents couples and small groups of dancers as if they’re characters in a nightclub. A highlight was Pasos Largos/Long Steps, choreographed and costumed by guest artist La Lupi in 2022, which used cordoba hats as a versatile prop to create a series of moods and vignettes—gangsters strutting with raffish glee, the throb of a heart pulsing through space, a secret passed from hand to hand, a disguise. The audience burst into applause when the lights (designed by La Lupi and Derry) suddenly cast the dancers in stark silhouette in one of many moments of pure stage magic.
In Lozano’s first solo, Mediterráneo (2023), the dancer began with a simple gesture seated in a chair on stage right. Rising languidly, laden with longing, Lozano curled her fingers like smoke as the long tail of her skirt coiled around her feet, forming a base from which she arched like the stem of an orchid heavy with blooms. With undulating motions of her legs and feet, she transformed her dress into the waves of an ocean, the aqua tulle lining the edge of white fabric as frothy as sea foam, mesmerizing as it swirled about her. Within these waters, Lozano burned herself into space with the absolute command of a smoldering presence. In her second, Donde Todo Comienza, which won her the title of best female dancer at last year’s Cante de las Minas Festival in Malaga, Lozano hypnotized again from her very first appearance in the light, chiseling intricate patterns into the air with her arms, into the earth with her feet.
Tovar’s solos, La Vida Breve/The Brief Life (2022) and Desde Cai (2019), presented the dancer as a debonair figure, dashing in his ease with virtuosic zapateo, playfully charismatic yet never penetrating beyond a surface impression.
The evening closed with Tovar’s premiere Amangue (2023), which presented the ensemble in vivid crimson costumes in a spectacle of high-volume spirit. At nearly two and a half hours, Flamenco Passion begins to drag by the end, particularly as certain lighting effects used for dramatic emphasis begin to look like schtick with too much repetition. On the other hand, a little overdose of ardor might have been a necessary antidote—anything to get us from Skokie to Spain.
Classes presented as part of the 47th Annual Spanish Dance and Music Festival continue through 6/24 at Northeastern Illinois University, 5500 N. St. Louis. For information and registration, see ensembleespanol.org/events.