[photo credit: Sierra Madre Playhouse]
The program, which brought Spanish classical and flamenco dance to the Altadena Main Library in September 2024, returns to the area at Sierra Madre Playhouse on Saturday, May 2, at 11 a.m. Five artists make up the company for the Sierra Madre show, including Paco and Yolanda Arroyo, the Barcelona-born husband and wife who have performed at venues in Pasadena and across the San Gabriel Valley for decades, and classical guitarist Almer Imamovic, who has played Altadena’s Coffee Gallery Backstage. Tickets are $25 for the 99-seat venue.
The show opens with dancer Susana Elena — who also directs the Ecos de España program and has performed at more than 80 Southern California libraries since 2007, according to her website — performing a flamenco “Garrotín” with a traditional Spanish Cordobés hat. Spanish classical dancer Albertossy Espinoza follows with “Paso Doble,” the march-derived Spanish dance associated with the drama of the bullfight. Imamovic plays a set of classical Spanish guitar compositions before the program’s centerpiece arrives.
That centerpiece is a piece Paco and Yolanda Arroyo have built around Federico García Lorca’s lullaby “Nana del Caballo Grande” — a haunting text from his 1933 play “Bodas de Sangre” (Blood Wedding) that has drawn flamenco artists for generations. The Arroyos set the work to original choreography, performing it as a duo. The couple, who met at a Barcelona flamenco tablao in 1977 and relocated to Los Angeles in 1986, have been performing in Southern California for nearly four decades, according to a press release from La Rubia Productions.
Throughout the show, according to a Sierra Madre Playhouse press release, the artists introduce each number and invite the audience into the performance. When the program ends, attendees are welcomed onstage to meet the performers, learn introductory castanet technique from Elena, try basic flamenco steps, or ask about classical and flamenco guitar. It is the same format that filled the Altadena Library stage in September 2024.
“The 2026 season continues the Playhouse’s transformation into a vibrant, multi-genre home for artistic expression,” said Matthew Cook, Sierra Madre Playhouse’s artistic and executive director, in announcing the 2026 season. “In a time when audiences crave both belonging and discovery, Sierra Madre Playhouse offers both.”
Ecos de España is part of the Playhouse’s Dance @ the Playhouse series, which launched in spring 2025 and features eight Los Angeles dance companies in 2026. The Playhouse, which became a performing arts center in 2023, is housed in a building on Sierra Madre’s main street that has served the community since 1910 — first as a furniture store, then as a movie theater beginning in 1924, and now as a 99-seat regional arts venue recognized by Rep. Judy Chu as a leading nonprofit of the year in the San Gabriel Valley in 2023.
Ecos de España, presented by Sierra Madre Playhouse as part of its Dance @ the Playhouse series, will be performed on Saturday, May 2, 2026, at 11 a.m. Tickets are $25. The venue is Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 West Sierra Madre Boulevard, Sierra Madre, CA 91024. Tickets and information: (626) 355-4318 or www.sierramadreplayhouse.org.
Paco and Yolanda Arroyo have been performing together since 1977. The music they will play — Lorca’s lullaby about a big horse that refused the water — is nearly a century old. The stage in Sierra Madre seats 99 people. It is going to be a close room.
