Thursday, November 6, 2025
GALA Hispanic Theatre first presented a flamenco festival in 1988, 12 years after Rebecca Read Medrano and her late husband Hugo founded the company. Hugo, she recalled, “wanted GALA’s audience to be able to experience the breadth and diversity of different forms of flamenco expression, from traditional Spanish flamenco to Spanish folk dance and music.”
At the time, GALA’s home was Sacred Heart School. Seventeen years and several relocations later, when GALA — Grupo de Artistas LatinoAmericanos — moved into the renovated 1924 Tivoli Theatre, a few blocks from Sacred Heart in Columbia Heights, artists from both the U.S. and Spain took the stage during the inaugural Fuego Flamenco Festival.
The XXI Fuego Flamenco Festival will open at the Thomas Lamb-designed Tivoli, 3333 14th St. NW, tonight, Thursday, Nov. 6, with “Crónica de un suceso” (in English: “Chronicle of a Time That Was”), Rafael Ramírez’s homage to legendary dancer and choreographer Antonio Gades, who died in 2004. Danced by the Málaga-born Ramírez, “Crónica de un suceso,” presented in collaboration with Spain Flamenco Arts, will also feature singers Rosa Linero and Fabiola Santiago, guitarist Francis Martín and percussionist Cristóbal Sánchez. Performances are tonight, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.
New to the art form? Plan to attend “Aula [classroom] de Flamenco” this Saturday at 2 p.m. The free 90-minute session — presented by TorcuArt, a U.S.-based nonprofit that aims “to foster an interconnected community of Flamenco lovers,” and led by ethnomusicologist José Miguel Hernández Jaramillo — will include a demonstration.
The following weekend’s program, “Enredo,” which premiered at GALA’s XIX Fuego Flamenco Festival, will be performed by seven dancers and three musicians. “We titled our work ‘Enredo,’ which means ‘entanglement’ in Spanish, to reflect the interconnectedness and mutual influence among people,” explained co-directors Edwin Aparicio and Aleksey Kulikov, artistic directors of D.C.-based Flamenco Aparicio Dance Co. “In all our works, we use flamenco’s rich tradition and technique as a medium to explore timeless ideas” — in the case of “Enredo,” “the spectrum between individuality and community.”
Besides Aparicio, curator of the Fuego Flamenco Festival, who was born in El Salvador and raised in the District, the principal dancers of “Enredo” are Fanny Ara, Norberto Chamizo, Timo Núñez and Cosima Amelang, joined by company dancers Kyoko Terada and Sara Jerez, guitarist Ricardo Marlow, singer Amparo Heredia “La Repompilla” and singer and percussionist Francisco Orozco “Yiyi.” Performances are Friday, Nov. 14, and Saturday, Nov. 15, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 16, at 2 p.m.
The festival will conclude on Friday, Nov. 21, and Saturday, Nov. 22, with 8 p.m. performances of a world premiere, “Las mujeres que habitan en mí” (in English: “The Women Who Live in Me”), created and danced by Irene Lozano, who, like Ramírez, was born in Málaga. “A soulful journey through the women Irene has been — and couldn’t be,” the work will feature music sung by José Cortés and José Díaz “Cachito” and played by guitarist José Manuel Alconchel and percussionist Diego “El Negro” Álvarez.
“At GALA, we see ourselves as part of D.C.’s theatrical movement, while remaining deeply connected to our community through a wide range of performing arts styles, genres and projects,” said Gustavo Ott, who became GALA’s artistic director in January of 2024, following Hugo Medrano’s death the previous spring. “Each of our programs, from the flamenco and film festivals to GALita, our theater for young audiences, and our adult productions are designed for distinct audiences, sometimes quite different from each other. Still, together, they form one community that gathers at our theater in Columbia Heights.”
Tickets for XXI Fuego Flamenco Festival performances are $25, $35, $45 and $50, with $35 tickets for seniors and military and $25 tickets for age 25 and under. There is an additional $5 fee to attend Noches de GALA performances on Nov. 7 and 14. Festival passes are $120.