A Hauntingly Flawless Night with Enel Ram

I first heard Enel Ram sing at the Voice of Vallarta contest in the summer of 2022. Then she competed in the So, You Think You Can Rise talent contest, coached by Jan Dorland and Rob Burton. In the wonderful production Vacare, Enel Ram played four non-speaking roles with finesse; her blowfish, as adorable as her cleaning girl was miserable and perfectly cranky. Then, her bored, impatient waitress became an enchanted bystander with the rest of the cast.

She can act. She can sing. She is tiny and fragile, with a nervous, breathless laugh that she uses when she needs to focus and gather her forces to give her the courage to continue.

What Enel did at Casa Karma last night to celebrate one of her country’s favorite festivities – the Day of the Dead, left us filled with awe and hope.

It was one of those performances delicately balanced on the edge of brilliance. If we could have thrown enough flowers (marigolds) at her feet in tribute, Enel would have become engulfed. At 22, she is this close to stardom.

Gloria Fiona, a Voice of Vallarta alum, directed Enel in this tribute to “La Llorona,” a creepy legend of a woman who forever haunts the riverbanks searching for her two children that she drowned. Enel’s gorgeous gown, headdress and veil were made by her mom, who was in the intimate candlelit surroundings in Casa Karma’s living room.

All the songs were in Spanish and were interspersed with two AcroYoga dancers executing some of the most intricate, powerful moves I have seen outside of a full-blown Cirque du Soleil performance. So close we could have touched their non-wobbly perfection. Every move was slow, precise, and breathtaking.

Everything about the night was hauntingly flawless. As Enel summed up her solo show in a nutshell, “We are a country obsessed with death; of course, we are also obsessed with tortillas.”