A family that plays together

Tin Marin fell silent as Reynaldo Rincón began plucking the opening chords of Romería Flamenca’s Wednesday show. Willa Bronce, the troupe’s lead dancer, and Alice Blumenfeld, a featured performer, mirrored each others’ steps as they tapped in circles, swirling full-length skirts under twirling hands. 

The dancers’ clapping and stomping grew more vigorous as Mr. Reynaldo Rincón’s singing broke into vibrato. Soon Mario Rincón — Reynaldo’s son — began beating a wooden box, punctuating the rhythm with deep notes. By the end of the song, diners joined the band in shouting “Olé!”

Henry Gonzalez, the manager at Tin Marin — a new tapas restaurant on Riverdale Avenue — said he became intrigued with the Riverdale family’s flamenco ensemble after meeting Mario Rincón, 27, walking down Riverdale Avenue with a guitar slung across his back. 

Mr. Gonzalez saw Romería Flamenca perform in downtown Manhattan and was left convinced that “I had to have them” at the Spanish-inspired tapas eatery he was opening on Riverdale Avenue. 

Ever since, Romería Flamenca has filled the restaurant with leaping guitar chords, low lamenting Spanish lyrics and nuanced rhythms beat out through series of toe taps, claps, and slaps on an empty wooden box — or cajón — each Wednesday.

Reynaldo Rincón, the troupe founder, said he’s considered himself a Riverdalian since he moved from his native Spain to the neighborhood 20 years ago. He “fell in love with” flamenco while growing up in Madrid. 

By 14, he was attending “flamenco school” at Madrid clubs, restaurants and bars, where he learned the classical guitar sequences and vocal series. He decided to start his own group in the early 90s, which he named after the Romería de El Rocío, a Catholic tradition that sends millions of pilgrims from Seville to Almonte, where they pay homage to the city’s patron saint Las Rocinas each spring. 

“People go in a romería, in other words in groups, by car, by horse, by foot. They go to the virgin of Rocinas, hoping she will help them do well. It’s a whole fiesta at the same time,” he said. 

Willa Bronce, the group’s principal dancer, got involved with the Romería Flamenca about 15 years ago. She said some of her favorite Romería Flamenca shows were danced across stages in San Fransisco and Arkansas while the group toured the country from 1994 to 2002. Though the North Riverdale native has studied several dance styles, she said she felt a unique connection with flamenco because of her Romanian and Spanish-Irish roots.

“I don’t think of myself as any particular kind of dancer … I just express myself. I don’t get caught up in the technique, even though I have the technique, I just let go and feel it,” said Ms. Bronce, a Norwood resident.

Like many flamenco ensembles, Romería Flamenca grew into a family affair. Ms. Bronco and Reynaldo Rincón became a couple and introduced their 16-year-old son Nicholas Hagerty to the percussion and stepping involved in flamenco dance. Like Ms. Blumenfeld, Nicholas performs with the ensemble from time to time.

Mr. Rincón’s other son Mario, who attended PS 24 and the David A. Stein Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy, MS/HS 141, said his father began teaching him classical flamenco chords when he was 15. He later studied blues and soul music on the guitar and picked up singing and the cajón.  

Mario Rincón said the troupe began blending American blues melodies with flamenco rhythms after he joined Romería Flamenca in 2001. Still, some of the lyrics the Rincóns croon date as far back as the 1920s and 30s, when poet Federico García Lorca’s began pulling verses from Gypsies’ poetry.

“He was the patron saint of flamenco. Since many gypsies were illiterate, he really chronicled a lot of their poems and works,” said Mario Rincón, who also plays with the Riverdale-based reggae band Rocky and the Pressers.

Romería Flamenca performs weekly at Tin Marin, located at 3607 Riverdale Ave., from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. on Wednesdays; at Nai Tapas, located at 174 First Avenue, from 8:30 to 11 p.m. on Thursdays and Saturdays; and at Tapastry, located at 12 Church St. in Montclair, N.J., from 7:30 to 10 p.m. on Fridays. For more information, visit www.reynaldorincon.com.