Paloma Rodriguez

Paloma Rodriguez carries Sephardic and Latina heritage, and she plays like a struck match. Flamenco fire meets klezmer phrasing in her hands, and the two traditions stop sounding like strangers and start sounding like cousins arguing in rhythm.

She is the firecracker of the ensemble, the one whose passion sets the tempo of a room before a single arrangement has been agreed on. Her signature is a sharp rhythmic finger snap that the others have learned to follow.

She believes klezmer and flamenco were long-lost cousins all along, and she spends the film proving it, usually somewhere near Tyron Carter's beat and Oksana Shevchenko's strings.