Puerto Flamenco

The moment the first palmas cracked through the hush of Teatru Salesjan, you could feel the room lean forward. Puerto Flamenco's latest appearance in Sliema wasn't just a concert; it was a high-voltage communion between stage and audience, a night where every zapateado, the mesmerizing rhythmic footwork, seemed to spark off the walls and land straight in the chest. From the opening cante to the final, breathless flourish of guitar and percussion, the energy never dipped—it built, surged, and finally exploded into a standing ovation that felt less like applause and more like release.

Puerto Flamenco understands this intimately. Founded in the early 2000s by Grima and Vujicic, the company has spent two decades touring the world's major festivals while staying true to the grassroots spirit of the Andalusian tablao. Their mantra—"we don't change flamenco to fit the stage, we change the stage to fit flamenco"—was on full display in Sliema, where the theatre was transformed into an intimate space that encouraged interaction, spontaneity, and shared emotion. Helped along by the odd bottle of wine.

At the heart of this electric current was Francesca Grima, "La Chica," the Maltese-born, Seville-trained dancer who leads the company with the authority of someone who has earned her place in the city's most demanding flamenco tablaos. Her dancing was a masterclass in control and fire: each turn precise, each stomp deliberate, yet infused with an improvisational daring that kept the audience guessing. When she danced, the room didn't just watch—it followed, breath held, as if her feet were conducting the very rhythm of the night.

Beside her, Andrej Vujicic, the Serbian-born percussionist who has made Seville his home for over two decades, anchored the rhythmic cycle with his cajón (box drum) that sounded less like an instrument and more like a second heartbeat. His interplay with the guitarists and singers was so tight, so instinctive, that the boundary between accompaniment and conversation seemed to vanish.

The rest of the cast matched this intensity step for step. Not least, Juan del Puerto, representing Seville's new generation of bailaores (male dancers), who brought a masculine ferocity to his solos, his footwork a blur that somehow never lost clarity. His costumes were wonderfully flamboyant, where does he get them? And his rhythmic pumping of the beat caused flutters amongst the girls, and or two boys, in the front row, who were seen to use their fans exuberantly.

Cristina Tovar's voice cut through the hall with a power that felt almost physical, her cante jondo (deep, profound song) moments dropping the temperature in the room before lifting it again with lighter, more playful palos/styles.

Rubén Romero's guitar work was both technically dazzling and deeply expressive, his guitar solos, known in Seville as falsetas, weaving around the singers and dancers like a third voice in the dialogue. And Tremendo Hijo, the prize-winning cantaor, delivered verses with the gravitas of someone carrying generations of tradition on his shoulders, yet with a freshness that made every line feel newly discovered.

What made the evening so electrifying wasn't just the individual brilliance of the performers, but the way they fed off one another—and off the audience. Flamenco, after all, is not a spectacle to be passively consumed; it is a living exchange, a conversation between artist and witness.

For those who know the nuances of flamenco's geography, the Seville influence was unmistakable: the polish, the theatrical flair, the command of space that comes from performing in the city's legendary venues like El Arenal and the Flamenco Biennial. Yet there was also a hint of Cádiz in the ease with which the performers slipped into lighter, more festive forms, a reminder that flamenco's soul is as much in the streets and carnivals as it is in the grand theatres. This blend of discipline and playfulness, of depth and joy, is what makes Puerto Flamenco so compelling—and what made this particular night so unforgettable.

By the time the final note faded, the audience was on its feet, clapping not just in appreciation but in participation, as if to say: we were part of this too. And in a very real sense, they were. For a little over an hour, Teatru Salesjan had become a tablao, a gathering place where the old rules of performer and spectator dissolved into something more primal, more human. It was, in every sense of the word, electrifying.

As Andrej shouted out "Here's to 'Team Human'!"