Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca will dance at Fairfield University's Quick Center for the Arts November 7 | Press Releases

"...she danced as if possessed by the spirit of a Gypsy encampment ... she breathed the essence of flamenco." John Rockwell, The New York Times

Hailed by critics everywhere for its transcendent and deeply emotional performances, Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca is recognized as the most authentic flamenco touring company in the field today. Fairfield University's Quick Center for the Arts presents the internationally acclaimed and award-winning Spanish dance company on Friday, Nov. 7 at 8 p.m. The company will also perform to a sold out audience of students from grades 4-12 on Friday, Nov. 7 at 10 a.m. for the Quick Center's ArtsBound outreach program. The ArtsBound program is co-sponsored by the Herman Goldman Foundation and the Fairfield County Community Foundation.

Born of passion and desire, Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca was founded in Madrid in 1993 by Artistic Director Martín Santangelo and his wife, Soledad Barrio, and has developed into one of Spain's most successful flamenco companies. All aspects of flamenco, dance, song and music are interrelated and given equal weight in this dazzling company, creating a true communal spirit within the company, which is the very heart and soul of flamenco.

"Flamenco is a primal scream, an essential cry to express the joy, sorrow, comedy and tragedy of individuals and groups who are repressed by some form of limitation - social, economic, spiritual, physical," exclaims Santangelo. "In an attempt, through singing, playing and dancing, to free the soul from this oppression," he continues, "we are impelled onto a tough but beautiful road full of miraculous human complexity. Flamenco is our vehicle."

It is the mission of Noche Flamenca, to create a diverse theatrical body of performance through song, music and dance that expresses a rigorous, spellbinding aesthetic in the form of flamenco. Through educational outreach, the company seeks to educate persons of all ages, races and economic backgrounds regarding the authentic form of flamenco - a form born of ancestral cultural repression and racial expulsion.

Tickets for the evening performance are $45, $40 and $35 and they are available online at www.fairfield.edu/quick or by calling the Box Office at (203) 254-4010. The toll free number is 1-877-ARTS-396. For more information, please visit www.fairfield.edu/quick.