The music and dance departments at Grand Valley State University have come together to perform a rarely-seen flamenco ballet, “The Spanish Tradition: Manuel de Falla, El Corregidor y la Molinera,” as part of the Fall Arts Celebration.

“The piece has not been choreographed very much since the early 1900s, so it is a rare treat for the GVSU population to witness this piece,” said Shawn Bible, a GVSU dance professor.

This will be only the third performance of the piece in the U.S.

Celebrated flamenco dancer Nelida Tirado will open the show with a traditional flamenco solo performance. Tirado was named in Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” list in 2007 and teaches dance at the Peridance Capezio Center in New York City.

Bible said Tirado was invited because of her ability to showcase flamenco’s “powerful dance tradition.”

Danny Phipps, a member of the music and dance department, chose the music thinking it would lead to a great music and dance collaboration. The ballet’s title translates into English as “The Magistrate and the Miller’s Wife.”

“The piece is considered a Diaghilev ballet in which modern dance elements were infused so it looked less like traditional ballet,” Bible said. “I choreographed the piece with modern dance vocabulary influenced by flamenco movements.”

Jesse Powers, a GVSU junior, plays the miller in the show.

“I’m sort of the good guy in this whole production,” he said. “I also have a fight scene with Brandon Meier. I know when we are on stage it’s going to be tough to not bust out laughing because we pretty much do every rehearsal!”

This is Powers’ first experience with flamenco, though he has studied traditional ballet and jazz/lyrical dance since she was 10 years old.

“(This is) very special to me because I get to show off what I have learned here at Grand Valley,” he said. “(In flamenco,) you really have to use your whole body and soul to create the emotions.”

Bible said flamenco traditionally involves just one dancer responding spontaneously to a local musician, usually a guitarist.

“Though this performance is staged, we’ve kept the feeling of spontaneity in both the music and dance,” he said.

“El Corregidor y la Molinera” will be performed at 8 p.m. Monday in the Louis Armstrong Theatre, located in the Performing Arts Center on GVSU’s Allendale Campus. It will be preceded by a carillon concert from 7:20 to 7:50 p.m. and followed by reception, both of which will be free and open to the public.

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