Flamenco, cello, guitar, spiraling surfaces, flesh and wood, multiple frames, swirling fabric, live sculpture, painting, and video projection integrate to create Clinard Dance Theatre’s new work, JONDO PORTRAITS. In Clinard’s quest for new ways of communicating personal and global events she has chosen the Jondo (Spanish translation of “deep song”) branch of Flamenco music and dance as the springboard for JONDO PORTRAITS. The traditional boundaries of flamenco are stretched, culminating into this contemporary dance theatre work.

JONDO PORTRAITS is structured as three vignettes surrounding the themes of madness, loss, and longing. It aims at creating still and moving portraits that recharge our astonishment, our questioning, our grief, and our compassion in our contemporary climate of war. Historically, through their song and dance, the Jondo forms transcended human sufferings by communion with the unknown. It was art intended for the community that encompassed not only the human but the divine.

In the creation of this powerful and moving work, Clinard has sought the artistic collaboration of legendary flamenco guitarist and composer Pedro Cortez, Syrian-born cellist and composer Kinan Abou-afach, world-recognized sculptress and sister Susan Clinard, and renowned painter Thomas Masters.