The dancers in Spain's national company may be drilled in flamenco but their style is softened by a parallel schooling in classical dance. With their torrid spins restrained into fluid pirouettes, their arms lengthened and feet turned out, this is flamenco buffed and polished for global consumption.
If nuances of ballet creep into the dancing, the repertory also aspires to a quasi-ballet model. Director José Antonio has more than 30 dancers at his disposal, who he uses to build elaborate choral numbers (long lines of men stamping in union, groups of women fanning in intricate patterns), as well as to push flamenco towards more narrative terrain. In Golpes de la Vida Antonio explores the relationship between an ageing dancer and his protege, while in La Leyenda he choreographs a semi- narrative tribute to the great bailaora of the mid-20th century, Carmen Amaya.
Yet in chasing after this dual stylistic model, Antonio is in danger of falling between two stools. He cannot find a sufficiently wide-ranging language in flamenco to support the extended ballet format to which he aspires. At the same time, he doesn't have the kind of fiercely individual dancers, upon which flamenco depends, to carry his material.
Ironically, it is Antonio's own cameo appearance in Golpes de la Vida that highlights the latter flaw. A bulky man with disproportionately tiny feet, Antonio's dancing effortlessly conveys both the subtlety of a master and the angry bullishness of a man raging against his decline. His final pose, collapsed in a chair, his feet executing a dying stutter of rhythm is genuinely affecting. No one else in the company makes this impact, least of all the women. Cristina Gomez, taking the lead in the evening's opening piece Grito, is simply dull, her torso inexpressive, her general mood a monochrome sulk.
And while Ursula Lopez and Elena Algado work hard in the double role of Carmen Amaya (especially in the diva's buccaneering en travesti numbers), they don't come close - how could they? - to evoking a legend.
· The flamenco festival continues until Saturday
· Box office: 0870 737 7737
