Omnivore - The Warren to host flamenco performance this Sunday
Private supper club in Va.-Highland hooks up with local flamenco school
This is Kristi Warren Evans, whom I met recently at the Ansley Starbucks. She is the owner of The Warren, a 10-year-old private supper club in Virginia-Highland atop the Dark Horse Tavern. It's rare for me not to know of a restaurant around that long, but its existence was news to me.
While the Warren is open to members only during its regular hours, 6 p.m-2:30 a.m. Wednesday-Saturday, Chef William Taylor's consistently well-reviewed brunch, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday, is open to everyone.
What excited me was to hear that the restaurant is hosting a flamenco performance 3-5 p.m. this Sunday, March 24, featuring the very gifted Marianela "Malita" Belloso of the Caló Gitano Flamenco Academy. Performances, which will include other members of the academy's dance company, will likely occur every six weeks or so, according to Kristi. (Cost for non-members is $7.)
If you've never seen an authentic flamenco performance, this is an opportunity. I've long been obsessed with the dancing and music and have been to the month-long Bienal de Flamenco en Sevilla twice. The dance functions, in my view, as a kind of somatic psychology, much as theater did for the ancient Greeks. It engages dancers, singers, percussionists, and the audience with "duende," basically a force of the unconscious.
Or it's just cool to watch all that tippy-tappy, snippy-snappy stuff.
(Check the Warren's website for information about reservations. And some member of the club needs to let me know how the Captain-Crunch-encrusted salmon is.)