Because of my recent activities, the thought of being of service has been on my mind. Recently I had one of those "a-ha!" moments onstage, while I was doing palmas along with my fellow dancer as accompaniment to the guitarist's solo.  We were all totally in sync, riding the waves of the rhythm and the notes, hitting all the accents, and resolving all the phrases together beautifully.  The guitarist was trying new things, complicated things, that he hadn't done with us before.  It all came out apparently easily; the audience had no idea we dancers hadn't heard this particular version of things before.  Our expressions of joy during our jaleos were not rehearsed, they were natural exclamations of delight at how it was all coming together.

When it ended, we all looked at each other with gratitude.  We dancers enjoyed the guitarist's playing, and he in turn, thanked us for giving him the support he needed to try the new material. These moments, where improvisation and collaboration meet smoothly, can only come from one thing--years and years of dedicated study.  These instances are moments when I feel pride for coming as far as I've come and gratitude for having the fortune to be a Flamenca in this lifetime.  I believe I live a very beautiful and privileged life.

Those years of practice have been a gift to myself, and I have often reflected on how I am sharing my gift with students and audiences, but I'd like to offer another thought.  For us artists, our years of study are a gift to our colleagues as well.  If you've been dancing, singing, or playing for a long time, you know how wonderful it is to work with a full ensemble of performers who are bringing their all to the collaboration.  There's nothing like it.

Often, we artists focus on our practice in order to prove something--to be the best, to dazzle, to get as much work as possible.  All of these things are important, but I'd like to propose a new consideration.  I'd like to suggest that we make our study and practice an act of service:  service to our students and the audiences who come to see us, service to the venues and customers who pay us, but also it is a service to our colleagues.  The more work we do to hone our craft, the easier we make it for everyone with whom we share the stage.  Doing this shows a sign of respect and reverence for our craft and for each other.  

When you come to work from this place, the place of reverence and service, the music flows beautifully and you all experience that sense of joy and gratitude and isn't that ultimately what work and life should be about?

"What Turning Forty Means to Me:  I need to take my pants off as soon as I get home.  I didn't used to have to do that.  But now I do." --Tina Fey

All jokes aside, I am three days away from turning 40. People have been asking me what I want to do for my birthday and I don't know what to tell them.  When I turned 30, we were living in Madrid and we planned a 30-hour party with our friends.  There was an itinerary that was distributed and anyone could join up with the party at any given time.  If you wanted to join us for drinks at 7pm, we were there.  If you wanted churros and chocolate at 6am the next day, there we were.  Most of the big details were planned out, with room for improvisation--we all came upon a playground at 3am, which led to this:

That was a fun weekend.  My friends still mention it every time they wish me a happy birthday.

​Now, 10 years later, I have no idea how to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the 30-hour party. Things feel fuzzy.  The thought at the time was, "I'm turning 30 and I'm in Spain; it should be epic!". Now it really feels like, "Uh, I don't know...?".

Now, I don't want you to take this as me being negative about my age or anything like that.  I like that I'm turning 40.  It feels like an age with some character to it.  I get to say things like, "Kids these days" and "I can't be bothered" and mean it.  It's a great age.

I think the thing that feels nebulous to me is that everything is up in the air right now.  I grew up being told that a woman needs to have her life settled by the time she's 40--her career, her family, her home; every detail should be in place.

Hmmm.  But....what happens when you've chosen a career in the arts?  I'm not even talking about the financial questions that I know come up for everyone when they hear "artist", although those are very real questions.  I'm talking about art itself.  The simple act of creation is a constant question.  When I get up onstage, I never know exactly how the performance is going to go, especially with Flamenco since so much of it is based on improvisation and communicating with your cuadro* in real time. When I sat down to write this blog post, I had no idea what was going to come out.  I still don't know where this is going to end up.

And what happens when your husband suddenly gets a job in Africa and is gone for a couple of months at a time, in a region that is not particularly stable, working for an industry that is not particularly stable?  

What happens when you get diagnosed with a chronic illness that is known for being unpredictable?

What happens is the truth of life--nothing is certain.  Nothing can be "settled".  The moment you think things are settled, a tremor or an earthquake will hit and unsettle things.  Foundations crack. Structures shift or crumble altogether.

This is where being a Flamenco dancer has given me an edge.  I have been trained to improvise.  If things aren't exactly going the way I had planned, I listen for cues and shift until everything gels together again and it always does.  It may not end up coming out the way I originally envisioned, but sometimes that insecure moment leads to something even better.  Sometimes it doesn't, but it always leaves me more confident in my ability to handle what comes.

So this birthday, with so many things in my life feeling unsettled, it seems perfect that I just let go and see what happens for my birthday weekend.  So far, I've been asked to perform at El Cid on Saturday, the day after my birthday.  I know many of my Flamenca friends are throwing a brunch for me the day after that.  I love that the weekend has spontaneously come together and it feels very right that Flamenco is playing a big part in it.  

I also find it interesting that my actual birthday day is still wide open for anything.  I'm feeling a little unsettled about that, given that it's the big 4-0 and all, but I'm just going to breathe, listen for the cues, go with what comes, and know that it will be perfect.

​
*cuadro--the ensemble of Flamenco performers onstage.



Did you like this post?  If so, feel free to Like and share it.

Are you turning 40 or have you already turned 40?  Feel free to share any insights or advice about this particular milestone.

If you have any other insights about aging or the unpredictability of life, feel free to share those in the comments below.

"...there is an erroneous message, I think, out there that art and the process of creating is very, very healing and therapeutic. And I don’t think it is. I think it’s cathartic. It moves energy. But there are certain songs, one of which is 'You Oughta Know,' where I have sung that song countless times onstage, and if I were to run into that person right now, I would feel horrified." --Alanis Morissette, interviewed by Tami Simon on Sounds True, 2014*

This quote really caught my attention when I first heard it.  It was an interesting thought.  The idea that art is healing and therapeutic, in and of itself, is something that I have taken as truth for a long time. Not only that, I hear my colleagues say it over and over again.  So when I hear a respected artist say the complete opposite, I have to sit up and take notice.

So I listened to the interview repeatedly to see if I could get the gist of what she was saying.  Then, while in my exploration, I came across an interview of Alanis by Oprah Winfrey on Super Soul Sunday where Alanis made this claim again:

"I actually think that art itself is cathartic, but it's not healing.  I thought that I could get away with writing these songs and it would absolve me and redeem and clean up, but after having sung, 'You Oughta Know' night, after night, after night, if I ran into that person I would have likely been catapulted right back to feeling uncomfortably terrified and awkward.  So it showed me that the process is cathartic, of creating and moving energy, and it can kick start, it can be a catalyst to investigate, but unless there's an actual relationship going on...there [is] not a lot of healing afforded".

Aha!  This was interesting and juicy.  I began to think about my own process.  In a recent school assembly, a child asked what inspired me during my dances.  I explained that there were various factors:  the lyrics of the song, the people I'm working with, but also my mood.  I told her that when I was in a happy mood, it was fun to dance the happy dances, but that when I'm sad or angry, it's just as fun to dance the sad or angry dances.  Why?  Because it's cathartic.  After having a particularly difficult week, maybe because I wasn't feeling well or because I had had an argument with someone, I would get an amazing release from dancing out my anger onstage.  It usually makes for a better performance too, when you channel that real energy and let it move you.  I always feel uplifted afterwards.

This is where we get the idea that art is healing--this feeling of catharsis when we've moved that energy through us, especially if it has moved something in our audience as well.  They get that catharsis too and in that moment, we are in relationship.  So yes, that feels healing.

However, I can admit that I have spent years dancing out the anger over people or situations that I have not forgiven.  Although I do feel like I've moved that anger through me and I have felt relief from doing so, I know full well that I have not healed that anger.  It rears its ugly head over and over again, and although it often feels good to use it for my dancing, it eventually gets old, and it most certainly doesn't feel good when it shows up in the middle of my every day life.  The only times I feel that I have actually healed my anger are when I have done the real work of forgiveness--when I have sat for hours and hours in meditation, with the intent to release that anger and forgive, and even more importantly, when I have actually done the work of having the conversation, meeting that person heart to heart, acknowledging my responsibility, and forgiving and letting go.

So yes, I guess Alanis has a point.  In the interview with Simon, she goes on to define healing as "the return to the original wholeness and original truth of what we are—that innate goodness".  In this definition, healing implies that we no longer see ourselves as right and others wrong.  We just see ourselves as one in the same, part of a greater whole, equally capable of being both right and wrong.  When I think about a lot of the professional relationships over the years, both mine and others I have witnessed, then I have to agree with Alanis. Our art has served as catharsis and part of a healing process, but not the healing itself.

So what do we do?  We continue to move our energy through our art and use it as part of our therapy, but we need to do the other work.  We need to do the work that allows us to see ourselves in the other and the other in us.  The artists that I know who seem the happiest overall are those who have done this in some way, whether it be through meditation, therapy, prayer, service to others, or a combination of all these.  Remember, art should bring people together.  That union is where the real healing begins.

*The link to the Tami Simon interview can be found here: http://www.soundstrue.com/store/weeklywisdom/?page=single&category=IATE&episode=9909

You can watch the Oprah Winfrey interview here: 

Did you like this article?  If so, feel free to "Like" it and share it.
I think what Alanis said makes for an interesting dialogue among artists.  What do you think about Alanis's point about catharsis vs. healing?  Do you agree or disagree?  I would love to hear your thoughts in the Comments section below.

This post is dedicated to my late grandmother, Mercedes. Together, she and I used to celebrate our Saint's Day, "el día de Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes", on September 24, which is coming up shortly.


Oh, the Guajira. This rhythm has been haunting me for a few years.  Mostly figuratively, but even literally. The other day while trying to choreograph a Guajira, I would pause the CD to take a break, and it would start playing by itself.  I then stopped the CD entirely, and when I walked away, I once again started to hear those opening guitar chords, playing on their own.  It was as if the pesky palo* was saying, "You're finally working with me and now you want to stop?  No way.  You're mine now".

I actually had a relationship with the Guajira long ago. It was the first full "solo" number I ever learned.  I put it in quotes because I performed this number with about 40 other classmates in my Intro to Flamenco class at UCLA.  It was exciting at the time.  I got to have fun working with the fan, a traditional element of the Guajira, and I relished the fact that the lyrics were about some dude's desire to marry a beautiful Cuban girl from the countryside, a "guajira" (the rhythm itself is named after a Cuban rhythm by the same name). Being a Cuban girl, it was fun to pretend the verses were about me.

As a member of different dance companies, I have performed some version of the Guajira several times, with both a fan and a shawl.  In Spain I had a teacher who dared to teach us a Guajira without the fan! "Why does the Guajira have to have a fan?," she asked, when a student questioned her methods.  I liked her sense of rebellion, but I do prefer the fan for the Guajira.  It's what gives it a bit of Cuban flare.  It's the same reason I don't like Guajira lyrics that don't have to do with Cuba.  I feel like, "what's the point in that?" To me what makes the Guajira special is its "Cubanness".  Without that, I'd rather be dancing something else.

You see, over the years as I got more serious about Flamenco, I decided to focus on what are considered the more serious palos and I forgot about the poor Guajira.  I started to see the Guajira as a gimmicky dance, used to give audiences the treat of some pretty props that we twirl around, but not something I considered to have any real substance.  It's not just because it's a happy dance either.  The Alegría de Cadiz is actually named after "happiness", but it is a robust dance, with lots of mood and rhythmic shifts built into it.  There's a structure with a lot of meat to it.  To me the Guajira just doesn't necessarily have that same depth.  It's pretty with pretty lyrics and a sense of romance and flirtation. That's nice, but can you give a girl some angst?

These are just my excuses though.  The reason I haven't done a Guajira solo in years is that people expect me to do so:  "But you're Cuban!  You of all people should have a Guajira".  And that is why I don't.  I know, it seems petty.  Yes, partly it is.  I have a rebellious streak and don't like to be told what to do. However, there's also a fearful perfectionism playing its hand here.  I feel like if I'm Cuban, my Guajira better be the most Cuban Guajira ever and I want it to feel that way, right out the gate.

Here is where we learn the lesson about perfectionism--it gets you stuck.  You don't let yourself create anything when you get hung up on wanting it perfect.  It will never be perfect.  I've been dancing Solea por Bulería for years now and people tell me they love my solo, but I know it's never perfect.  I will always want it to be more.  However, I also know that it is way better than it was when I first started putting it together back in Spain seven years ago.  In fact, it barely looks the same.  We have developed and melded together, fermenting like a fine wine.

So this is what I need to remind myself as I rekindle my love affair with my forgotten Guajira.  We may start off with a bumpy beginning, but eventually we should smooth out and glide together.  Or saunter.  The word "saunter" keeps entering my head when I think about walking across the floor, slowly waving my fan, proudly embodying my ancestors onstage.  

For now, I'll leave you with a sample.  This is a video of Belén Maya dancing to Mayte Martín's cante. The choreography has some modern elements that you don't often see in a traditional Guajira, but I love this video because Belén captures the coquettish and sauntering feel that I think this palo should have.  Also, I absolutely love the way Mayte sings Guajira.  They are beautifully accompanied by Juan Ramón Caro on guitar.  Enjoy!

* a particular rhythm or musical form in Flamenco

Did you like this post?  Feel free to Like it and Share it  and stay tuned for Part 2 where I will go over a bit of the history of the Guajira with more video samples.

What do you think of the Guajira?  Are there other Flamenco palos you prefer?  Do you also struggle with perfectionism?  Feel free to share your thoughts below.

I am often approached by people looking to hire my services for their special event, but not really knowing what they are looking for or what to expect. They are often surprised when they realize they are not just hiring me alone to dance.

When you want a live Flamenco dance performance at your event, at the very least you are hiring two performers: the dancer and a guitarist. This is the number one fact you must keep in mind when creating the budget for your event.

If the budget does not permit for two performers, a dancer with pre-recorded music can be found, but you must understand that this is no longer Flamenco. The beauty of Flamenco is the live conversation between musicians, partly choreographed, but partly improvised. No two performances are ever the same. This is the magic of our art form.

For a truly authentic Flamenco experience, you must also consider the importance of the singer, or Cantaór or Cantaora.  The cante, or song, comes first in Flamenco. The dancer interprets the letra, or lyrics, when she or he dances. For the discerning event planner who wants to create a truly genuine Flamenco show for their guests, the singer must also be accounted for in the budget. Sometimes you can find a guitarist who also sings, but this is not the norm. If you do find this guitarist, you should still expect to pay for his or her additional contribution.

Finally, for the legitimate cuadro, or group, you should consider at least one other dancer who not only adds to the dancing, but to the rhythmic dynamics of palmas, or percussive hand-clapping, and jaleos, shouts of encouragement. On top of this, for a truly rounded out performance, you can consider a cajonero or percussionist. 

The most important thing to note when allotting for these performers in your entertainment budget is that if they are professionals, they are experts in their art. They have years of schooling and training, including time lived in Spain. They spend several hours a week rehearsing by themselves and with each other. They spend time and money researching and studying the new and old of their craft. They also run themselves like businesses, spending hours upon hours writing and negotiating contracts, marketing their services, networking, and producing shows, music, videos, etc. They buy and maintain equipment like sound systems, portable dance floors, costumes, shoes, etc. Many are teachers as well, spending much of their time preparing and teaching classes, workshops, and demonstrations. All of these activities cost time, effort, and money.

So please consider the above when planning to hire Flamenco artists for your event. When you receive a quote, please consider that you are not just hiring a pretty girl or handsome man in a flashy costume to play a CD and dance around to it. You also are not just paying a dancer and a musician to simply play music and dance at your event. You are paying for their expertise, for those years of training, for their hours of work that goes unseen. Those hours of work directly benefit you in that they all come together to create the best possible performance at your event.

Because you are paying good money for a service, you also have every right to be discriminating. Please do your research and make sure you are hiring experts in their field and consummate professionals. Feel free to ask them about their training, their work history and ethic, their relationship to Flamenco. Expect them to be on time, friendly, and just as committed as you are to making sure you get a memorable performance at your special occasion. Just as dedicated artists deserve respect for their craft, you deserve the best your money can buy. Expect it.

In my next installment for this topic, I will explain the different styles of Flamenco shows you may be considering and what is best for your particular event.


If you liked this entry and found it useful, please share it. If you have any questions for me about planning your special event, please feel free to contact me.

"I mean, writing is my craft and my profession, but the real, central journey of my life...has been trying to figure out how to live well. Trying to figure out how to not succumb to darkness. Trying to figure out how to be a better friend to people. Trying to figure out how to find destiny and live it in a way that feels bold and important.

That’s kind of what I’m about. Writing is—I don’t want to diminish writing by saying it’s “just what I do,” but writing is my vocation. But I think I have a higher vocation that I respond to, which is living." --Elizabeth Gilbert, Author of Eat, Pray, Love and The Signature of All Things.

This quote was one of the first things Elizabeth Gilbert said during an interview with Tami Simon on the Insights at the Edge podcast*.  Once I heard it, I was hooked.  I knew I found the beginning of an answer to a years-long meditation.

I've been wrestling with the question of identity--identity as a human being who happens to be an artist.  I love my art.  I love being creative.  I love sharing my creativity and my passion for my chosen form of expression.  What I do not love, however, is the way of living that comes with an over-identification with the label of "Artist". 

I do not love living in the world of "Who is better?" or specifically in my profession, "Who is more 'Flamenco' or 'Flamenca'?".  I do not love living in the world where this question then leads to constant gossiping about our fellow artists in an attempt to prove that we are the one who is "more".  I do not love living in the world that it so over-identified with the "suffering artist" or "suffering Flamenco" stereotype, that we spend hours abusing alcohol, ourselves, and each other, in order to prove we belong or don't belong--whichever seems truer to our artistry at that given moment.

Now before you think that I am sitting here in judgement of my fellow artists, please know that I am including myself in this honest critique.  I have been just as guilty as anyone.  I too get wrapped up in this, "aren't I amazing and unique and original because I've chosen this niche art form that is so niche it's hard to make money, but that's okay because that just means I'm a truer artist and Flamenca?  Aren't I, aren't I, aren't I?"

They say the teacher teaches what she needs to learn.  I believe this is what is behind my writing.  I am writing about this because it is a struggle of mine.  I have spent the last few years working very hard on figuring out who I really am.  Through meditation, through reflection, through volunteering and even through my dancing and teaching of dance, I have been exploring what my life means if I am not "Flamenca" or not "an Artist" or not "Bohemian" or not "a Gypsy-in-spirit".

What if I were stripped of all these labels and I was just a human who happens to dance?

This is one of the scariest questions in my life.  I overcame so many obstacles in order to become a professional dancer.  I have done years of training.  I study various aspects of Flamenco and the Flamenco culture.  I have done and continue to do the work that gives me some modicum of credibility in my field.  I have dedicated so much of my life to Flamenco and dance itself that it seems crazy not to completely identify with it.

And there is nothing wrong with enjoying the accolades you receive when you have done all that work.  You should be proud of getting to a place that shows you've put in your time.  I have often had the joyful conversation with fellow artists that starts with "Remember when we didn't know anything?  Look how good we've gotten".  Those conversations are worthwhile.  Those conversations celebrate the process, not the labels.  Those conversations celebrate each other.

The problem comes when we lose touch with the process, when we lose touch with the time when we were just a curious dabbler, a beginner.  Do you remember the joy there was in discovering something new that was so amazing to you it piqued your curiosity and all you wanted to do was learn more?  Remember when all you did was enjoy your time learning and dreaming of when you'll be good at it?

In this same interview, Elizabeth Gilbert goes on to say that art is a place to process our pain, but that the process of creation itself shouldn't come from pain, but from joy.  She also says that the process comes from pain when an artist feels they have to suffer in order to create.  When art comes from a pained creative process, you're sharing that energy of pain with the world rather than sharing your love for your art.

In my experience, this is exactly what happens when we get caught up in the labeling and unnecessary competition.  We start to approach our art from a place of fear, resentment, frustration, and anger.  Doing the thing you love suddenly becomes a chore, even an annoyance. 

We often get confused, thinking that Flamenco makes room for the dark emotions.  After all, the mother of all the rhythms is the Solea, or the dance about loneliness, but that is not what I am talking about. 

I am the first to say that I prefer the jondo in Flamenco, the songs about sadness and anger.  However, when I create my solos or when I go to my shows, I always set the intention that I am channeling these feelings in order to tap into something greater.  I hope that I am stepping into some divine stream of consciousness where I can communicate the universality of my feelings with anyone who is watching because I know they feel this way too.  And I hope that together, audience and I, can find some resolution.  However, I'm also aware that this may not happen.  I could come to the most amazing resolution and an audience member can simply arrive at, "well, isn't that pretty?".

I love to remember this because ultimately, I am no more special than the non-dancer audience member who is watching me.  For all I know, they save lives.

So again I come to that question of identity.  There was a time when we weren't the professional artist we have come to be.  Who is that person?  The sister, the brother, the daughter, the son, the friend.  The audience member.  Who is the person beyond even those labels?  Who are you...really?

Yes, these questions are scary, but when you really think about them, there is so much freedom to be found.  There is the freedom to do what you love, simply for the sake of doing what you love.  There is the freedom to choose who you will work with, where you will work, and how you will work--the freedom to create healthy boundaries and relationships.  The freedom to create art from a place that heals you and others.

Finally, Elizabeth Gilbert quotes Tom Waits as saying that when he starts to take himself too seriously he reminds himself that as a songwriter he is simply making "jewelry for peoples' minds".  Nothing more, nothing less.  It is beautiful, yes, but it is adornment.  We artists make life more interesting and we do fill a necessary role, but we are not above and beyond anyone else.

While doing my hospice work, I always remind myself, "This will be you one day".  One day, I will not be able to dance.  In fact, that could even be tomorrow.  So then, why take my "Artist" self so seriously?

Instead, I would rather do what Gilbert says in the quote at the beginning; I'd rather "figure out how to be a better friend", daughter, sister, wife, aunt, teacher.  Even more than that, I want to figure out this human business.  And while I can, I'll do it all while dancing.

*If you identify with any of what I'm saying, I highly recommend listening to this interview:  http://www.soundstrue.com/weeklywisdom/?source=podcast&p=9535&category=IATE&version=full

Back in August, I wrote an entry called, Our Life's Dance, where I talked about following our life's calling or passion.  I was inspired by this quote by Gabrielle Bernstein: "Don't dance around the perimeter of you want to be; dive in fully."  As promised in that original entry, I want to talk about how this quote is not only a dance metaphor for life, but it can be applied to dance as well. 

Over the years I have learned that it is not enough to memorize steps, have perfect formations, and make sure all your angles are correct.  Although it is of utmost importance to spend years honing your skills and making sure your technique is clean and strong, all the impeccable technique is still not enough if you do not deliver yourself in your performance.  To me, delivering yourself means that you should reach down deep inside, pull out your most raw sorrow, anger, joy, love, gratitude, fear, elation, EMOTION, and channel it.  You must embody that emotion and let the emotion guide you in your dance.  You must engage with it, letting the feeling become a partner.

In Flamenco dance, this is especially important.  Most of the time we are soloists, doing 10 to 15-minute long numbers that tell a story, complete with a trajectory, a climax, and a resolution.  Imagine how lackluster a solo of this length would be, if the dancer danced the entire number only in their head, completely focused only on technical execution and not on any sense of connection.  There should be a decision to connect--with the audience, with the musicians, with our fellow dancers, and with our deepest self.  Once you're onstage, you have to give yourself over to that connection and answer a question:  who are you?  This is point of it all.  This is what the audience wants to know. 

When you let yourself go and "dive fully" into the dance, this question starts to get answered, both for the audience and for yourself.  There is a complete catharsis that comes when you've abandoned your ego, the mind full of planning and "shoulds and you let your true self speak through the dance.  You know when the catharsis has happened.  You know when you're both exhilarated and exhausted at the same time.  There is a deep joy, a sense of knowing.  You often get that catharsis mirrored to you by audience members, through tears, through them relaying to you what they thought your story was.  It may not be what you thought to express before you got started, but once you hear it, you think, "yes".  There is a universal truth that was delivered.

This complete surrender when you dance, is what makes people fall in love with the art form.  I believe this is true for any art form as well as in life.  People are drawn to the universal truths they see reflected in each other.  After the years of necessary study and rehearsal, when it's time to perform, please do the world and your art a favor and just let us see the real you.  You should be center-stage, not on the perimeter, dancing around the ego's idea of what it "should" look like.

Below is one of my favorite videos of  Juana Amaya, "diving in fully".  Enjoy and feel free to let me know what you think.

Before I even really knew what Flamenco was, I knew the name Paco de Lucia.  He is considered one of the greatest Flamenco guitarists (arguably one of the greatest guitarists all around) and many of my generation of guitarists credit him with being the reason they dedicated themselves to Flamenco guitar.


One of the beautiful things about Paco as a person, was that he chose to honor his mother by choosing the stage name, de Lucia.  He was born, Francisco Sanchez Gomez, in 1947.  His mother was Lucia Gomez and his father was Antonio Sanchez, a laborer and a guitarist himself.  If you want a more detailed biography of Paco, please visit his website: www.pacodelucia.com

What can I say about Paco?  He was a virtuoso, but his playing went beyond technique.  It was amazing technique perfectly fused with soul.  This combination, and his willingness to explore new terrain, while staying true to his Flamenco roots, were what enabled him to take Flamenco to the world.  He has given so much to the world of music, though his collaborations with international artists, and he is also credited with bringing the world back to Flamenco.  One of the biggest examples of this is when he and his Brazilian percussionist, Rubem Dantas, brought back and adapted the Peruvian cajon to Flamenco.  This box-like drum is now a fixture in most Flamenco shows, so much so, that newbies are always surprised when they find out how recently it was introduced into our art form.

For me personally, because I love cante so much, some of his greatest collaborations were with the legendary singer, Camaron de la Isla.  Together they brought Flamenco to new heights and to the world, including me.  I am forever grateful. 

Paco passed away from a heart attack last month, on February 26th, 2014.  His heart stopped and the hearts of all other Flamencos broke that day. 

We will miss him greatly, but his music lives on.  Below are some clips for you to enjoy.  Have a beautiful day, surrounded in music.

If you've been following my newsletter and my blog for awhile, you know that I say I've been married to Flamenco for X number of years.  Right now it's 18, but it will be 19 sometime in the Spring.  Unfortunately I don't remember when our exact anniversary is.  I just know Flamenco and I finally found each other in the Spring Quarter at UCLA in 1995.

Like in any marriage, we have had our ups and downs.  The downside?  Impatience, anger, and fear.  Conflicts of the ego, where I was getting ahead of myself, wanting things to be other than they were at the moment, an unwillingness to commit.  I've mainly been the problem.  I can admit that.  Flamenco has always been there for me.  When times were tight, Flamenco bought groceries.  When I was grieving death or heartbreak, Flamenco sang to me and held me up in its rhythmic waves, to the point where I've learned to breathe and float while resisting pain.

Flamenco has also taught me joy in small things.  The satisfaction that comes from the perfect arch of the eyebrow, that slight shoulder bounce on the 10 in Bulerias, that perfect hip roll or head roll.  The fun of shaking a scarf or my hair at the audience.  Flamenco taught me how to flirt and how to own my sensuality.  It didn't teach me to do it in a cheap way either, but in a badass way.  Alluring and defiant at the same time.  As a teacher told me once, "You're saying, 'You can look at me, but if you touch me, I'll cut you' ".

Flamenco taught me patience, hard work, and care for my craft.  I honestly believe I would not have really understood mindfulness meditation or yoga if I hadn't been through the rigors of Flamenco training first.  It literally has been blood, sweat, and tears.  Toenails ripped off, bruises from falling or hitting myself too hard when doing a slapping step, a busted knee that left me on a cane for awhile, cuts on my hands from the palmas or even my castanets, a sprained toe that turned black.  That one also left me on a cane for awhile.  There were hours of staring at myself from every angle in a mirror, hours of going over the same step over and over again to get the counts or the feeling just right, hours and hours and hours of classes.  The expense and experience of selling off your stuff, packing up the rest, and moving to another country for years, just to spend hours every day honing your craft.  So now, understanding that I am a baby at meditation is really easy to accept.  Flamenco was my first practice.

Flamenco has been gifted to me in this lifetime and honestly, I feel we've been together before.  It's the only thing that explains why I've been practicing snapping on multiple fingers ever since I was a little girl.  I've recently been a little out of love with Flamenco.  Again, it's not Flamenco's fault.  I think those of us who are married to Flamenco often abuse its sacredness with getting caught up in unnecessary stuff.  Pettiness, insecurity, avarice, fear, anger.  All of these things get in the way of our contract with Flamenco.  And it is a sacred one.  No one can tell me Flamenco is not sacred.  It is a musical form with roots that go as far back as 900AD.  It came together from a merging of various cultures, led by people who were resisting persecution.  They took their pain and suffering, faced it, and channeled it into beautiful music and dance that gave them a moment's freedom.  To me that is a gift from the divine, the cosmos, the universe, the collective consciousness, however you want to look at it. 

So Flamenco, I am now working on falling in love with you all over again.  As our relationship enters young adulthood, I am looking to mature.  I will be bringing in what I am learning from my mindfulness, loving-kindness, and gratitude practices to infuse our relationship with a renewed love and respect.  I will embrace the divine feminine that you have allowed me to channel more than ever before.  I will remind myself of your grounding force every time I place my nailed feet onto the tablao, acting as a tree, rooted in the earth.  Just like a tree, I will stretch my limbs to the skies, and like the wind that blows through its leaves, I will float across the floor with the aire that breathes me every second of every day. 

Flamenco, I vow to you to honor our sacred contract.  I am grateful to you for these almost 19 years.  I want to extend my gratitude to all lovers of Flamenco.  In the present, and in our future, may we always be mindful of our service to others through this art and that we may be of service to Flamenco itself.  May we all be happy, may we all be at peace, may we all be free.

Dancers are athletes.  Simple as that.  I say it because I often have to remind myself and I know many dancers who feel they often have to remind themselves as well.

We tend to forget because what we are doing is art.  Particularly in Flamenco, we mainly perform at night, in restaurants and bars where the lighting is dark and the liquor is flowing.  We female dancers are bedecked with jewelry and flowers in our hair, we've got the smokey eyes going, and we're wearing the long, flowing skirt.  Maybe there are ruffles, maybe there's some fringe, maybe there are some polka-dots, sometimes all three are together.  The male dancer might have the nice button-down shirt, vest, and slacks, and we all have our top-of-the-line shoes.  The Flamenco dancer looks like a work of art before she or he even starts dancing.

Then we dance.  The dance IS the work of art itself.  Every rhythm brings its own mood to interpret.  It's the dancer's job to tell a story and if they are a good story-teller, the audience feels it viscerally and there is the art, manifested.

But to get to this place, there is a lot of work.  There are years of training to acquire the right skill level of course, but what we can't forget is that the work is physical and strenuous at times.  A standard Flamenco tablao* show is about 45 minutes long.  A typical Flamenco solo averages around 10 minutes, definitely longer if you're in a theater setting.  Besides the solo, the dancer is required to participate in two or three lighter group numbers and does the palmas (percussive clapping) whenever it is not their actual turn to dance.

On top of that there are classes, practice, and rehearsals.

This requires a lot of stamina.  This is why I have to remind myself that dancers are athletes.  Therefore, we absolutely must take care of ourselves as athletes.  I

First, you need to eat.  When I first started taking daily classes in Spain, I lost a ton of weight because I didn't think about the fact that I had increased the amount I was dancing.  I also didn't figure in how much I was walking all over town since I didn't drive in Madrid.  One day, I learned the hard way that I was not eating enough.  It was winter and I was wearing a heavy wool coat.  I was carrying an army green messenger bag, full of English textbooks because I taught English in order to make a living.  I was leaving a class and walking down the stairs that led to the underground Metro.  I felt exhausted and suddenly my books and coat felt really heavy and then the next thing I knew, the bag of books pulled me down the stairs.  I landed at the bottom, surrounded by old ladies in fur coats making sure I was alive.  My immediate first thought was, "I need to eat more".

Second, and probably more important than anything, you need to sleep.  I've been thinking a lot about this one lately.  I'm recovering from a summer of doing too much.  I was subbing for my friend at a bookkeeping job, doing my volunteer work (I volunteer in hospice and visit four patients on a regular basis), teaching my classes, and performing.  I was getting home late from my Flamenco life and getting up early to go to the job.  Since I was working during the week and dancing on the weekends, I probably only had about three days off all summer long.  Due to the lack of time, and my tendency to be a bit disorganized, I was eating out too much, which meant eating things that weren't optimal (more on that in another post).  Eventually I got sick in the weirdest ways: an eye infection, a lymph node infection, and finally I was just plain sick.  When this happened, I had to cancel class and a couple of gigs because I hadn't taken care of myself to the point where you could just fight through it.  I had reached a point of fatigue.  I didn't leave my house for a week.

This brings me to the final point, one I have not been good about because I had forgotten that I'm an athlete.  You need to cross-train!  The best shape I've ever been in during my professional dance life was when my brother was my personal trainer, making me lift heavy things and doing that horribly named, "burpee" over and over again.  During that time, I was able to do weekends full of gigs and recover pretty quickly.  Of course, I was also eating well and getting a lot of sleep.  You can't do one without the others.  Otherwise, you end up fatigued!

Since I'm getting over the fatigue now (the extra job is over) and catching up on sleep, I'll transition back to cross-training gently through yoga, my favorite form of exercise besides dance because it is meditative.  The key is doing something that balances you out.  The yoga stretches help with the constant slamming of my feet into the ground and the arching of my back.

If you love your art, you have to take care of the tools that help you in your craft.  As a dancer, the number one tool is your body.  Treat it right, and you'll be able to create for many years.  Thanks to Flamenco and its respect for life experience, that could be much longer than you may have dreamed.  Don't sell yourself short.  Don't forget that you are both an artist and an athlete.  Treat your body accordingly.


* tablao--traditional Flamenco show held in a Flamenco bar or restaurant