Saturday, February 11, 2017

Is it too early?

It was a big decision when I decided to do a student show last Fall.  I always thought about it but I offer classes only once a week, and I found it very difficult to build students´ strength or choreography.  The majority of the students thought it would be a great opportunity for them.  I decided to do so because I wanted to know where this would take us to.

Performing Flamenco is an important deal for me.  I danced in Seville, but I had so much respect for Seville´s Flamenco and I always felt that it was too early and I should study more before getting on a stage.  But at the same time, if I had not, I would not have learned what I did by performing.  You can take classes and practice in studio for hours or years and if you don´t put your learning into practice, what you learned will be just a theory.  Indeed, you need a repeated practices in performing to truly understand how it works.  

I decided to do this show as one step of learning process for my students, hoping they will see things and learn about themselves and their dances that they would not in classes.  And I was not wrong.

They knew that they were in charge of their own dances because it would be their solo dances.  They started to notice what they did not know ask questions, even a simple things like Flamenco terms (escobilla, falseta, etc).  They started to notice what base they need to dance an entire piece alone.  

After this show, they need to get back to classes and studio and continue to build their technical skills, strength, and understanding of Flamenco.  They have a long way.  We are all students in Flamenco.  The only thing that makes us valid to share our dances is love and respect for the art form, hours of practice, investigation and learning, and humbleness of our attitude and desire to get better. 


We had a rehearsal with our musicians last night.  It was a pure pleasure to watch my students enjoying so much to dive in their music and just dance.  It was amazing to watch how all those small pieces of preparation came together to create the energy that swallowed us all.  I promise that you will witness a great show.  To read each student´s bio. please go to the Facebook event page.




No comments:

Post a Comment