A'lante Flamenco Dance Ensemble Tours Texas with 'The Red Shoes: A Flamenco Fairytale'

A'lante Flamenco Dance Ensemble, Texas' own touring flamenco theater company, will bring its acclaimed show "The Red Shoes: A Flamenco Fairytale" to Temple's Cultural Activities Center on Sunday, April 28, at 5:30pm. Additional dates, including Houston and San Angelo, are set to follow this spring and summer.

The Austin-based company, formed in 2011, performs both traditional and contemporary Spanish flamenco with a modern twist. The 12-member group is directed by choreographer/artistic director Olivia Chacón. The company debuted "The Red Shoes" to sold out audiences at the Rollins Theater of the Long Center in Austin in October, 2012, and has presented it in the Cameo Theater in San Antonio, as well as San Antonio's Luminaria Festival. Critic Jasmina Wellinghof of the San Antonio Express-News named "The Red Shoes: A Flamenco Fairytale" one of the city's best dance shows of 2012, noting: "Inspired by the familiar Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale... the piece was a creative foray into incorporating flamenco in a conceptual theatrical work that engaged on all levels: music, story interpretation and dancing...Dancing up a storm, Chacon beautifully conveyed both the protagonist's exhilaration and subsequent disenchantment...intense, classy dancing."

Of her choreography, the Austin-American Statesman's Jeanne Claire van Ryzin wrote: "Olivia Chácon proved just how flexible flamenco's centuries-old movement and rhythm vocabulary remains. Dancing to live musical accompaniment, Chácon, joined by three female dancers, distilled traditional flamenco to an angular essence, then burnished it with contemporary touches before adding back the traditional clattering shoes."

In addition to "The Red Shoes" A'lante will present "Dark Sounds/Sonidos Negros," a suite of six dances inspired by traditional flamenco musical forms...with a twist. Musical director Isaí Chacón leads a group of six of Texas' best flamenco musicians playing original compositions for both "Sonidos Negros" and "The Red Shoes."

Directors Olivia and Isaí Chacón returned to Austin after four years living in Madrid, Spain, in 2010. They immediately opened Austin's first flamenco studio, Flamencura Music and Dance, where they offer dance and music lessons to students of all ages. For more information on the artists and their work, plus photos and videos, please see http://www.alanteflamenco.com