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

• Published date: 21 March 2024
• Author: BARRY DAVIS
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

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...