The Van Gogh–Inspired ‘Colors of Love’ Comes to Downtown Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara is definitely a colorful town. Having just finished a week of Fiesta, overflowing with brilliant flamenco and folklórico dance and music, the community is getting ready for its next colorful multicultural showcase.

Yulia Maluta — dancer, choreographer, teacher, and award-winning filmmaker — presents Colors of Love at Center Stage Theater on Saturday, August 17, at 8 p.m.

Maluta, originally from St. Petersburg, Russia, was inspired to create Colors of Love 10 years ago by Van Gogh’s famous painting “Starry Night.” “The story of Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ is so inspiring,” she explained. “He was a tormented soul who did art for love, like so many of us artists. Art was his salvation; he did not make any money from it.” 

New to Santa Barbara in 2015, Maluta found that art was also her salvation, uplifting her and connecting her to people. She had no money, but managed to scrape together enough to rent the Santa Barbara Dance Center for her first Colors of Love show that winter. She said, “We can feel sorry for ourselves, or we can do something new.”

And she did just that: She created a new showcase to bring people together, to melt boundaries, and to open people’s eyes to the kaleidoscope of cultures and colors and the beauty in all of us when we let go of the fear that separates us. Colors of Love moved to Center Stage Theater in 2016, and the theater has been its home ever since, sometimes with two shows in a year.

Every show is different. Maluta gathers dancers from all around this area, finding “the right person, in the right time,” and the show unfolds. This year, Colors of Love will include belly dance, Latin international ballroom, Irish dance, tango, samba, South Indian classical dance, flamenco, and contemporary dance. 

Some of the featured artists this year include belly dancers Nilay Engin, Elvan, April Rai, and Krischana. Each of these artists brings a different viewpoint and expertise to their performances of Middle Eastern dance.

Also featured will be Russian champion dancer Vasily Golovin, performing with his students Jatila van der Veen [who is also the Independent’s dance writer] and Caterina Malinowski. One of the pieces Golovin and van der Veen will perform is their passionate paso doble, which they danced in Fiesta’s Noches de Ronda at the Santa Barbara Courthouse.

It will be a treat this year to have champion Irish dancer Alana Callaghan and her company. Callaghan and her brothers are all award-winning dancers, coming from a long line of champions from Ireland.

The 2023 Spirit of Fiesta Jack Harwood will dazzle the stage with his fast flamenco footwork, and soloist Matthew Willis will amaze the audience with his back flips and acrobatics.

And, of course, Maluta will be featured with her partners Ron Parker in a sensual tango l’amore and Matthew Willis in a flashy Latin number, and in new group choreographies with her dance company.

On a personal note, I have performed in Colors of Love every year, but I never knew the show’s connection to Van Gogh and “Starry Night” until writing this story. This fascinating painting, which Van Gogh created during his confinement in an asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, gives the show a whole new dimension for me. The swirling colors of the night sky, the depiction of a cypress tree shaped like a flame, and the sleepy town, all but lost amid the loud silence of the fantastical sky, provide a new backdrop for this show that, as a performer, I never realized before.

Maluta said, “From [Van Gogh’s] colors, relating visuals to colors in performing arts to express dimensions of human emotions and experience, one can have so many interpretations.” 

I once heard the famous choreographer Alonzo King say that “every choreography has as many meanings as there are audience members who witness it.” To be sure, Colors of Love will be a kaleidoscope of colors, visions, and emotions, and it will take the audience on their individual flights of fancy.

Colors of Love takes place at Center Stage Theater (751 Paseo Nuevo) on Saturday, August 17, at 8 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at bit.ly/4deckWM or at the box office. Advance tickets are $35, or $40 at the door, and student tickets (with ID) are $25. For more information, see centerstagetheater.org.