‘FLAMENCO’

Be prepared for a glimpse of hell when the curtains open on “Flamenco Puro” Tuesday at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood.

The show (the title translates to Pure Flamenco) is not about smoldering brimstone or the infernal regions. It is not about anything other than flamenco, and it sails along unburdened by plot or narrative. The vision of hell that spills out is carried in the hearts, and perhaps the genes, of the 21 Gypsies from the Spanish province of Andalusia who are the show’s dancers, singers and guitarists.

In interviews, conducted in Spanish, the Gypsy performers speak possessively, ethnocentrically and even fondly of that vision, as well as of witchcraft, of passion, and of a mystical, nearly untranslatable quality known as el duende.

“The duende is native to us,” says Fernanda de Utrera, a “Flamenco Puro” singer whose leathery voice matches her weather-beaten skin. The term can be interpreted as spirit , but like words such as soul or salsa , and the nicknames of many of the dancers, it defies precise definition.

“It is a fire--it is flames,” Utrera adds fiercely.

Backstage, before the performance begins, the flames can almost be seen and felt. There is some banter, and even laughter, but it is a tense laughter.

Hector Orezzoli, an Argentinian and one of the creators and producers of “Flamenco Puro,” comments: “It is not the kind of neurosis that you normally feel in the theater. It is an anguish--a pain.”

Moments before the opening curtain, the performers gather in a large circle on the dimly lit stage. The intensity of the private hell is strong enough in that gathering to make one fear for the safety of any confused stagehand or other outsider who might mistakenly try to cross through it.

“Flamenco,” explains dancer Manuela Carrasco, “is the expression of the pain and the centuries. It is something that is all ours.”

“That fire you see is something which comes from within,” declares Antonio Montoya, who goes by the nickname El Farruco (the feisty one). The barrel-waisted Farruco, 52, is clearly the patriarch of the touring clan.

“It is a witchcraft,” he continues. “It is also an expression of the Spanish Gypsy. But above all it is the expression of the individual, of the person who lacks that which he needs to live; be it love or something else.”

The first number features the entire company performing a bulerias , a form usually described as a festive song. The sense of festivity is there, but it is not the jaunty merrymaking of the flamenco dancers in Spanish nightclubs or on the concert circuit. The costumes tend toward austerity. Absent are the garishly sequined gowns with their effulgent petticoats. Many of the dancers have heavy, muscular legs and chunky peasant bodies. Instead of glitter, the show aims to present the raw emotion of the art form.

But flamenco is more than just a public outpouring of personal torment. It is a complex and highly evolved dance form with intricate counter-rhythms that demand technical virtuosity, and challenge even the most trained performers.

The dance and the partially improvised cante jondo , the wailing “deep song” that often accompanies it, are said to have originated in India. From there the evolution is traced through the Middle East and northern Africa, and finally to Spain where it arrived during the 8th Century with the invading Moors.

The idea of mounting this full evening of authentic non-commercialized flamenco is the brainchild of Orezzoli, 33, and fellow Argentinian, Claudio Segovia, 54, also the creators and co-producers of “Tango Argentino” and “Black and Blue,” a show about American jazz that is currently having a long run in Paris. A fourth project now in the works takes a similar look at music and dance of various countries in South America.

Segovia and Orezzoli consider the four projects as an interrelated quartet. At the moment they see the proposed South America presentation as the last one in the series.

“But actually,” Segovia says with a laugh, “we have more (potential) projects than we have time left to live.”

The shows, Orezzoli says, were created out of the men’s “personal need to approach the traditional cultures of the underclasses; to preserve the underground, almost clandestine, culture that survives parallel to the mainstream culture.”

“This kind of art,” Segovia adds, “travels a real life path of emotion and blood which takes it above mere technical perfection.”

The artists that interest them, the producers say, are the ones “outside the huge culture industry; the ones who are struggling to express something profound.”

When they find them, Orezzoli and Segovia say they tamper very little with the work itself and try to allow a minimum of concessions to commercialism. The successful balance, the producers believe, consists of maintaining the purity of the art while still including the theatrical elements.

“It is, after all,” the soft-spoken, scholarly Segovia emphasizes, “not a museum or a university lecture. It is a living art--a form of expression that is unique to this epoch of our society.”

The producers may speak of “underclasses” and “society,” but the performers are less inclined to think in terms of statements or messages. Eduardo Serrano, a.k.a. El Guito (the essence), states bluntly: “The individual artists may have their own ideas, but the Gypsy is basically anti-political!” For Serrano, the more essential dialectic involves flamenco keeping its purity while the tradition is still growing and evolving.

When the producers are asked whether the flash of stardom and playing to sold-out houses in city after city could endanger the purity of the artists and bring them closer to the pop culture of the music hall Gypsies, they are optimistic.

“They live the art,” Orezzoli insists. “They are not aficionados who take it up once in a while. The structure and the discipline are all a part of their lives. They are individual artists, but they are also fruits of a cultural tree that has very deep roots.”

Most of the performers were born into flamenco families and can trace their heritages back through half a dozen or more generations of artists. “Being born into a flamenco family means you learn it like learning a language,” Segovia says. “You also learn the values. It’s not like learning a language in an academy and just using it.”

Many of the “Flamenco Puro” performers are related, and the parent-child, husband-wife, and in-law connections in the show are as interwoven as the contrapuntal rhythms of the music. This makes for a somewhat hermetic community which is able to continue its own traditions and rituals regardless of where the tour stops. It also leaves the producers and company managers dealing with community dramas and crises ranging from severe melancholia to matrimonial disputes that send hotel furniture flying.

The kinship also leads to scenes such as dancers Jose Cortes, known as El Biencasao (the well-married one), and Angelita Vargas watching from the wings with misty-eyed parental pride during a recent performance in San Francisco as their son, dancer Joselito Cortes, 16, performed a particularly virtuosic solo. As the younger Cortes exited the stage, Vargas pinched him, while Cortes senior, his gruff voice just barely hiding a proud smile, said, “You’ll have to practice your heelwork a little more.”

“It is the mutual support that makes it all possible,” Farruco says. “If I see you are a little weak tonight, I will help you. If I am weak tomorrow, you will help me.”

For the performers, each evening is a new experience. The improvisational aspects of the art form coupled with the latitude allowed for personal expression means that each show, although built on the same pre-determined structure, can have a texture all its own.

“It is all according to the duende ,” Utrera declares. When it comes, inspiration comes. “Besides, if the art was the same every day, it wouldn’t be art.”