José and Miriam left this afternoon. It was the first show I organized and in which I danced after I came back from Spain last April. I can't say it's been an easy transition to move back to Minneapolis. I've been searching for reasons why I moved back besides my husband and ways to integrate my experiences and learning in Spain and my actions here. This show was one of the answers to myself. Towards the end of my stay in Seville it felt so comfortable and home for the city and good friends like Miriam and I've missed being there. For that reason, it was so nice to see and spend time with them. They have a very relaxing air around them. They are very sweet and loving. It reminded me how I was feeling when I was living there. In Seville, many artists and friends told me, "flamenco no tiene prisa (nothing hurries in flamenco)". Their temperament in singing and dancing must come from a very deep place within them.
I wonder if there had been a concert in the Twin Cities which featured flamenco singing before this one. It wanted this to be a cante concert. I wanted to feel that I were in Seville and the same for the audience. It is logical that in this community when people think of flamenco, many of them think that it's dance or guitar first. It is really cante and compás. Also, because I mostly learned what flamenco is about not in dance classes I attended but in conversations I had with my teachers, artists and aficionados friends, having an interview part with José was important for me. It was a risk I took by taking time for an interview with José and putting importance on singing than dancing because I thought I might disappoint people who came mainly to see dance. In order to set a common ground between the artists, the audience and my goal, it was important that the audience got to know about José as a person and as a singer. I wanted this concert to stress out the fact that cante is the most important and essential element in flamenco and that everything else including dance elaborates as an interpretation of cante. I recognized we had so many challenges and imperfection due to lack of time to rehearse, also lack of staff members and experiences to carry out a concert. I figured everything has a learning curve and I certainly discovered a lot by doing it last night. We did our best and hopefully it'll only get better. This was a great kick-off for a new page of my flamenco journey. Everything happened naturally and spontaneously that night. Everything was the flamenco I love.
I wonder if there had been a concert in the Twin Cities which featured flamenco singing before this one. It wanted this to be a cante concert. I wanted to feel that I were in Seville and the same for the audience. It is logical that in this community when people think of flamenco, many of them think that it's dance or guitar first. It is really cante and compás. Also, because I mostly learned what flamenco is about not in dance classes I attended but in conversations I had with my teachers, artists and aficionados friends, having an interview part with José was important for me. It was a risk I took by taking time for an interview with José and putting importance on singing than dancing because I thought I might disappoint people who came mainly to see dance. In order to set a common ground between the artists, the audience and my goal, it was important that the audience got to know about José as a person and as a singer. I wanted this concert to stress out the fact that cante is the most important and essential element in flamenco and that everything else including dance elaborates as an interpretation of cante. I recognized we had so many challenges and imperfection due to lack of time to rehearse, also lack of staff members and experiences to carry out a concert. I figured everything has a learning curve and I certainly discovered a lot by doing it last night. We did our best and hopefully it'll only get better. This was a great kick-off for a new page of my flamenco journey. Everything happened naturally and spontaneously that night. Everything was the flamenco I love.
