The audience is barely seated before Strike a Chord has already begun. The five dancers of Las Flamenkas are onstage as you enter, warming up, not as performance, but as preparation, as ritual. It establishes something important immediately: this is a company that takes its craft seriously.
Strike a Chord is the world premiere of a new work by Pepa Molina, a first-generation Spanish-Australian, internationally trained choreographer, and one of the most significant voices in Flamenco on this continent. Presented as part of Sydney Fringe Festival 2026 at the Eternity Playhouse, the work brings together Molina's youth ensemble Las Flamenkas with guitarist and composer Marco van Doornum in a presentation that sets out to explore the evolving dialogue between dance and live guitar. What it delivers is considerably more than its modest description promises.
The eight-piece program moves through the styles of Farruca, Sevillanas, Zapadeado, Bulería, Soleá, La Caña and Guajira, with each form bringing its own character and energy. The castanet prowess performed by Pepa Molina is exemplary, technically demanding, precise and deeply musical. La Caña featuring a black Flamenco dress and orange shawl is among the evening's most striking visual and choreographic moments. The closing Guajira is equally impressive, its controlled drama with fans a fitting culmination. Quick costume changes executed flawlessly between pieces speak to a company of considerable professional discipline.The footwork throughout is advanced, the hand and arm work highly disciplined, the hallmarks of serious training rather than surface spectacle. What distinguishes this production, though, is its willingness to punctuate the tradition with moments of more surreal, contemporary movement. These ruptures are used sparingly and with purpose, giving the work a quality that feels both rooted and alive rather than merely preserved.
Las Flamenkas, being Amari Leiva-Urzua, Anna Rocías Balboa, Emilia Hanna and Sophia Marotta-Fujiwara perform with a collective energy that is as empowering to watch as it clearly is to embody. The standing ovation at the close felt entirely earned, and entirely spontaneous.
Marco Van Doornum is a formidable musical presence throughout, modestly positioned side-of-stage. With more than twenty years of professional experience across Australia, Spain and New York, including performances at the Lincoln Centre, he is no mere accompanist. He is a full creative voice, his guitar in genuine conversation with the dancers, pushing and responding rather than simply underscoring. Without a 'singer' per se in the ensemble, that guitar carries the emotional weight the voice would usually bear, and van Doornum rises to it.
The staging is plain black (drapes, floor, nothing to distract) and the simplicity proves an inspired choice. Lighting designer Maxine Kelman makes the darkness work for her, deploying haze and shifting pools of light that envelop and reframe the dancers as they move. At moments, the effect borders on the painterly: the swirling haze dances around the performers, following the body rather than obscuring it. It lifts the visual register of the entire performance.
Compañía Pepa Molina, founded in Madrid in 2004 and based in Western Sydney, has spent two decades building pathways for emerging Flamenco artists in Australia. Strike a Chord is a vivid demonstration of what those pathways produce. It is respectful of tradition, unafraid of innovation, and performed with a conviction that reaches across the footlights. A very fine evening at the Fringe.
Strike a Chord. Eternity Playhouse, 39 Burton Street, Darlinghurst. Sydney Fringe Festival, 16–19 September 2026.
Tickets and more info: https://sydneyfringe.com/events/strike-a-chord/
(images: Yerko Leiva; video: supplied)
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