by Marco Aquino

Since its debut in 2009, Tamara Adira’s avant-garde troupe Arte y Pasión has used flamenco as a vehicle for social commentary, political protest, and artistic healing.

The company’s latest work, Sonidos de Libertad (Sounds of Liberty), draws inspiration from the punk movement of the 1970s. While punk’s fashions, sounds, and anarchic energy reshaped popular culture, Adira’s production avoids the clichés. Instead, Sonidos de Libertad uses the structure and language of flamenco to explore the roots of punk — the social pressures, injustices, and cultural shifts that sparked its rebellion.

After premiering in March as part of the Carver Community Cultural Center’s 2025 season, the production now reaches new audiences through an online film presentation at WeFlamenco Fest 2025. The cast features guest artists Melissa Cruz, Gabriela de los Peines, and La Triana, alongside Austin’s Celia Corrales on vocals, José Manuel Tejeda on guitar, and Roberto Paulo Riggio on violin.

“What I plan to do is tell the story of punk using the language of flamenco,” said Adira. “We look at what caused the movement to come about — the history of fascism, the history of treating women and brown people as lesser. That’s the history I’m talking about.”

A teenager in the 1980s, Adira was shaped by the music of The Dead Kennedys, T.S.O.L., and Blondie. Punk’s critique of the Reagan era — from “trickle-down economics” to the mishandling of the AIDS crisis — left a lasting mark on her worldview.

Sounds of Freedom

Punk has long stood for nonconformity and resistance to authority. While its confrontational tone can divide audiences, its deeper ideals — anti-fascism, anti-war activism, and advocacy for race and gender equality — resonate widely. In this way, flamenco and punk share a rebellious core. Both emerged from marginalized voices, both demand to be heard, and both have served as outlets for collective pain and protest. Historians trace punk’s origins partly to the cultural trauma following the Holocaust. Many early punk pioneers were Jewish or the descendants of Allied soldiers, carrying forward an inherited defiance of fascism and authoritarianism.

Flamenco’s own roots lie in Spain’s Andalusian region, shaped by Romani, Jewish, African, and Indian influences. The Romani people, often persecuted, forged flamenco as an expression of both suffering and survival — through raw vocals, driving rhythm, and fearless emotion. Over time, it has evolved across continents, adapting to new languages, sounds, and struggles.

So, can flamencos also be punks? As the Dead Kennedys famously put it in 1981, the heart of punk is simple: “thinking for yourself.”

Challenging the Status Quo

For Arte y Pasión, confronting convention is nothing new. From the impossible choices faced by women in Mercuria (2023) to the struggles of undocumented families in Mantas de Luz (2020), Adira’s productions consistently amplify underrepresented voices. In Estrellas (2017), she examined generational trauma passed down from Holocaust survivors. In Shiva Sits, she confronted domestic violence, performing bound to a chair, unable to walk or dance — a haunting metaphor for silence and survival. With Sonidos de Libertad, Adira delivers a cry for freedom — from oppression, from conformity, and from the internal battles that hold us captive. It is a reckoning with history that dares to move us forward.

Arte y Pasion present 2 online film screenings: Grito de los Arboles and Sonidos de Libertad November 23, 2025. 11:00 AM, Tickets start at $1:54.

For further reading:Stratton, Jon. “Punk, Jews, and the Holocaust — The English Story.” Shofar 25, no. 4 (2007): 124–49. JSTOR link

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