Sara Baras Brings ‘Vuela’ to Flamenco Festival Miami in Tribute to Paco de Lucía

Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras’s “Vuela” comes to Flamenco Festival Miami on Saturday, Feb. 28 and Sunday, March 1, the exclusive big-ticket concert of this year’s annual celebration of the art form at the Adrienne Arsht Center. (Photo by Sofia Wittert, courtesy of the Adrienne Arsht Center)

Onstage, “prima bailaora assoluta” Sara Baras is as indomitable as a force of nature. With footwork as relentless as a summer rainstorm on a metal roof, arms that look as though they could hold up the sky, and a face that radiates warmth like the sunlight of her native Cadiz, it is easy to see why she has been an audience favorite at Flamenco Festival Miami since the event began.

Her company’s first performance here was in 2005, the festival’s inaugural year, before it moved from the Jackie Gleason Theater (now Filmore) to the then newly erected Adrienne Arsht Center.

After three sold-out runs in Madrid and international performances from London to Hong Kong and stops in between, audiences continue clamoring to see “Vuela,” Sara Baras’s tribute to iconic flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía. (Photo by Sofia Wittert, courtesy of the Adrienne Arsht Center)

In its fourth visit to Flamenco Festival Miami on Saturday, Feb. 28 and Sunday, March 1, the company performs “Vuela,” a concert-length work that pays homage to guitar titan Paco de Lucía, whose untimely death in 2014 sent shock waves through the flamenco world.

Guitarist Paco Fonta, long a pillar of Miami’s flamenco scene, explains that de Lucía “made his mark on all of us,” not just with his playing and his incredible technical prowess, but with the music he created. “He was a god, practically,” says Fonta.

Baras explains that she thinks of “Vuela” as her way of thanking the musician she calls one of her greatest teachers.

Dancer Sara Baras possesses the strength, technique and attention to detail of an Olympic athlete, but she says dance for her is more about emotional depth than mere physical prowess. (Photo by Sofia Wittert, courtesy of the Adrienne Arsht Center)

“I was lucky to be close to the Maestro and to have his advice and warmth my entire life,” De Lucía admonished her to “never forget where you come from,” says Baras.  “Of course, you must travel and live and share and learn from all cultures, but without forgetting who you are.”

If de Lucía opened flamenco to the world, Baras, for her part, opened the world to flamenco. With his embrace of jazz, Latin and rock influences and the incorporation of instruments like the Peruvian cajón, the saxophone, and the electric bass into his ensemble, de Lucía breathed new vigor into traditional flamenco and brought millions of young listeners into the fold. And Baras, with over a quarter century and five continents’ worth of touring under her belt, has herself become one of the art form’s preeminent international ambassadors.

Since the debut of “Vuela”  in 2024, Baras has played to sold-out theaters in cities like London, Paris and Hong Kong, and will have its fourth run in Madrid this spring.

Singer May Fernández, dancer Sara Baras and guitarist Keko Baldomero all hail from the southern port city of Cádiz, one of the cradles of flamenco. (Photo by Sofia  Wittert, courtesy of the Adrienne Arsht Center)

“Vuela” is a work in four acts— “Tierra,” “Mar,” “Muerte” and “Volar”—with fifteen dance and musical numbers that Baras says explore elements like the earth and the sea to create a work that she says is more experience than spectacle. Wooden canes pound the ground in the section “Earth,” while “Mar” speaks of “the immensity of the sea and the water. Afterwards “Death,” being able to accept that our loved ones leave us, not only with the sadness of losing them, but also with gratitude for having had them with us.”

In the end, she says, the performers allow those emotions to “fly through dance,” first out to the audience then back to the performers on stage, in that profound energetic circle that only live performances can create.

The troupe is made up of a corps of six dancers, Baras, and six musicians, including guitarist and musical director Keke Baldomero, who was tasked with composing and arranging the music for this ambitious production.

Baldomero, who played for many years for singer José Mercé, joined the Baras troupe in 2012. He has written many full-length works for them since, from 2012’s “La Pepa” to “Alma,” a highlight of the Arsht’s 2023 festival. Still, the notion of composing a nearly two-hour piece in homage to the god of the flamenco guitar must have been a daunting one. Baldomero chose to weave recordings of de Lucía in with his own compositions; these, too, contain motifs that play off the Maestro’s rhythms and melodies.

“Vuela” (meaning “fly”) is performed by Sara Baras together with 13 dancers and musicians. (Photo by Sofia Wittert, courtesy of Adrienne Arsht Center)

Miguel Marín, founder and director of the international Flamenco Festival, explains that “one of the lovely things in the show is that each of the artists has their moment.” Audiences, he says “see these sublime moments of guitar, singing, dance, percussion.”

Indeed, while a Sara Baras concert is always a visual feast, it is as rewarding to simply listen to as it is to see. While it would be nearly impossible to close your eyes during one of Baras’s solos, if you did, you might appreciate more fully what a virtuoso percussionist she truly is. This is perhaps one of the qualities that endears her to guitarists like de Lucía: she is as much as a fellow musician as she is a dancer. And, like her guitarist mentor, Baras never holds back.

“When she performs,” Marín says, “she gives herself over completely, and it’s not just her. It’s her whole group that has to give of themselves as she does.”

Other musicians in her group include singer May Fernández, who, like Baras, hails from Cádiz, Spain’s oldest city and one of the cradles of flamenco. Her powerful voice has the rich, gutsy authenticity of someone who grew up in the “barrio de Santa María,” historically a hotbed of flamenco tradition and southern Spanish sass.   Matías López, “El Mati,” approaches lyrics with tender sensitivity. His voice carries a delicious sweetness punctuated by moments of raw emotional intensity.

“The show,” Marín says, “has the additional element of collective energy. You see Sara and you see how she is giving it her all and, as the singer, you too are inspired. You have to give it your all, it’s something that feeds itself.”

“Vuela” is a work in four acts— “Tierra,” “Mar,” “Muerte” and “Volar.” In the section entitled “Earth,” the dancers pound the
floor with wooden canes in syncopation with the rhythms of their feet. (Photo by Sofia Wittert, courtesy of the
Adrienne Arsht Center)

Marín notes that de Lucía had an unwavering dedication to flamenco that Baras shares, as well as “a humility that makes both of them even greater.”

“I want to connect with everyone,” says Baras. “I don’t want to dance just for myself.” Onstage, “when you stand up there, the truth is you want to reach the last heart in the last row.”

She wants the audience to find themselves immersed in the performance.

“Whether or not you can tell a ‘soleares’ apart from a ‘seguidilla,’ it doesn’t matter,” she says. “Flamenco knows nothing about passports or languages. It doesn’t have any of those limits. It goes directly to the heart.”

Other events in the Flamenco Festival include “Son Gitano,” a Latin American and flamenco fusion band, performing outdoors on the Arsht’s Thompson Plaza at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 25. Tickets are $29.95 at 305-949-6722 or arshtcenter.org. Singer Ángeles Toledano, a rising star in the flamenco firmament, plays the Miami Beach Bandshell at 8 p.m. Thursday, March 5. Tickets are $26.43 at  miamibeachbandshell.com/.

WHAT: Flamenco Festival Miami presents “Vuela,” by Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 28, and 3 p.m. Sunday, March 1

WHERE: Knight Center Hall, Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami  

COST: $35.10 – $204.75, includes fees.

INFORMATION: (305) 949-6722 or arshtcenter.org

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