Flamenco?

Tuesday night we went to the Ballet Nacional de Espana "El Cafe de Chinitas" and it was absolutely fabulous. I was just expecting a regular old ballet, as it sort of started out as. There was an orchestra and the dancers were all dressed in regular ballet outfits, but with a little ruffle at the bottom. The men were all dressed in bullfighter-esque outfits and the colors were all very basic. The orchestra played typical ballet music, and every now and then there would be a little flamenco flare.
After intermission, they put up a big reproduction of a Dali painting to just take in:

Of course in color, but I couldn't take pictures and this was the best I could find:

About ten minutes later, a man would ride across stage on a bike with a loaf of bread on his head. Another few minutes, he rode again. After a few times, the audience realized and everyone hushed. There was no announcing intermission was over...people just realized it. Then he would ride by again more frequently. Then another passed by and there were two men with loaves of bread on their head would ride by. Then three. Finally, the show started back up again with extreme influences by surrealism. They hung white balls from the ceiling and there would be projections of eyes moving around in them. There were flamenco singers- both male and female. The costumes were vibrant and perfectly contrasted. Yellows against blues, purples and oranges, whites against blacks. The orchestra turned into a band and the entire stage was alive with color and life. It was absolutely amazing.




After the show was over, the audience was phenominal. They had actually coordinated the entire theaters applause to a flamenco beat. I've never seen anything like it. If you like surrealism, it is absolutely wonderful. If not, you may be a little confused with things like: why is there a man riding across the stage on a bike with a loaf of bread as a hat?



This man was practicing his flamenco singing outside the theater: