When the stage lights came on, the entire group of seven was arranged around a table in complete stillness like a sculpture. Slowly, they started unraveling that image one by one, spreading themselves around, punctuating their separation with brief solos,
then repositioning themselves in a tight configuration again. Eventually, various dialogues, one-on-one encounters and personal dramas developed, the intensity grew, and before we knew it, we held our breath in constant anticipation and wonder.

Omayra Amaya personifies Flamenco. She performs with raw power and elegance. She is a stunning harmony of the angle and the curve, the razor blade and the flower. Omayra Amaya does justice to her pedigree!

Omayra Amaya and Joaquin Encinias, both performers have a strong base in flamenco, ballet and Modern dance as was evident tonight. They are superb technicians, igniting the stage with their boundless energy. During the first have Omayra and Joaquin show off their technical virtuosity and skill as proficient dancers. The two weave flamenco with more modern styles of dance creating a tapestry of movement. As always, they brought the audience to a standing ovation.

I dare anyone to take his or her eyes off Omayra Amaya when she’s performing the flamenco she was born to dance. The Gypsy heritage singing in her bones and sinews and the self-awareness that flows out of her performance is a rarity, a meeting of tradition and stubborn individualism that is thrilling to behold. She seems less a performer than a force of nature Her commitment to exploring jazz as a new ìcolorî to add to flamenco extends to the way the dancers of the company gather in a phalanx, twisting their wrists above colorful cuffs, idiosyncratic flamenco rhythms, and the brisk ways they turn their heads this way and that.

Amaya dazzled her audience with impeccable timing, total control, a fine sense of line, and an openness to experiment. Amayaís dancing is powerful, emotional, earthy and graceful. As is the dance itself. Her finest quality, however, is something less purely visible. It is her use of energy and the skill to use as she pleases. When on stage, she owns it.

Flamenco sin Limites musicians on guitar, saxophone, cajon, yunque and palmas (stylized clapping) are outstanding in their own right, and combine with the dancers to create a knock-your-socks-off synergy. Encores were inevitable…the crowd was reluctant to let them leave the stage.

Omayra Amaya made a good case for big things coming in small packages. In a fiery tribute to her [great-]aunt, the acclaimed flamenco dancer Carmen Amaya, this dynamite performer was like a coiled spring, tightened and released at will with passion, flair and immaculate control. Amaya is extremely stylish, with a very aggressive flamenco style that works off angles–deep bends in the body, lightning turns with her head whipping back and forth, and legs that kick and hop off solid footwork. Through all this, the shoulders are loose, seductive, the arms supple, the hands expressive. She spent much of the work enticing singer Fernando de Malaga, ultimately luring him offstage with a final flourish of guitar and palmas (clapping) from her excellent musicians… Not only is full gypsy blood coursing through her veins, but the dynamic flamenco dancer has the heart (not to mention the phenomenal technique) of a born performer. As Friday nights wildly enthusiastic audience would attest, she is simply one of the best around, anywhere. The showís musicians are first-rate, especially the sensitive and accomplished guitarist Pedro Cortes and singer Fernando de Malaga, who wraps his husky warble around each melody with a raw urgency that seems to pierce the movement’s core.

With Omayra, you get “AUTENTICO” and someone that takes an interest in you and your progress – not someone that just wants your money, or plays favorites in class. She is a joy to watch and a great person (and no, I am not getting paid or asked to say this – just someone that has had the pleasure of experiencing a few of her workshops, and seeing a few of her performances). Don’t miss it!

As she (Omayra) danced I saw ferocity, defiance, pride, a goading combativeness. Her hands, like a Bharata Natyam dancer, telling of fires, of blossoming, fragrant trees, of unseen roots that cannot be destroyed. In this dance a woman can be both erotic and strong, aggressive and direct. If I had a young daughter I would want her to see Amaya dance. As she danced she seemed to generate more energy to dance fiercer, fuller and faster. But always, the dignified control of every nuance. She is poly-rythmic, poly-qualitative, poly-dimensional.

But then there was Omayra Amaya, herself a relative of the legendary Carmen Amaya, whose command of the stage is devastatingly direct and effective… Amaya gave an amazing Solea por Bulerias, a dance of sudden fury and startling silences. How she would put our as much energy as she did and not be breathing heavily at the end of it is beyond me, but such was the ease. This is some of the best flamenco you will ever get in Denver.