YouTube video featuring Jacco Muller accompaniment

Just received this incredibly touching youtube video from Jacco Muller. Even though I don't speak Dutch, and using a translation website definitely doesn't come close to what is written, the music speaks...

WTTD TV Interview of Jacco Muller and Victor Ghannam

Jacco and Victor were recently in Detroit to record this TV interview -- check it out, there's backstory plus lots of music to listen to. Enjoy!

CD RELEASE! JACCO MULLER AND VICTOR GHANNAM: "PALACE OF DREAMS" REALLY IS A PALACE OF DREAMS

How happy was I to receive in the mail this weekend a precious packet from my dear guitarist friend, Jacco Muller: inside was a hot-off-the-press copy of his latest CD, “Palace of Dreams”! What a wonderful gift, both personal -- addressed to me -- and universal -- released to all of us.

A year-and-a-half ago I wrote a post here about my friendship with Jacco and his last CD, “Vientos del Desierto.” http://juergablog.blogspot.com/2011/01/jacco-muller-guitarist-and-composer.html On “Palace of Dreams,” Jacco again collaborates with Victor Ghannam, an amazingly talented American-born Palestinian oud player.


On “Palace” Victor adds the qanoun to the mix, as well as electric oud, while Jacco plays, of course, his one-of-a-kind, custom built flamenco guitar plus electric guitar.









I had goosebumps already just reading
that bit of instrument info inside the CD cover (beautifully designed by Jacco’s wife,
flamenco dancer/choreographer/instructor extraordinaire, Vida Peral, BTW).




Yes, I have permission from Jacco to post these images from the CD jacket, and, yes, you will have to buy a copy to feast your eyes on the imagery from the back cover. It instantly transported me from downtown LA to, wow, somewhere so Mediterranean.

This CD cover captures perfectly the atmosphere created by the music. Listening to these tracks is like passing through layers of luxurious silk curtains, each one unique and gorgeous and sumptuous, and each one inviting you to take another step to feel the next one against your skin.  Even the order of the pieces travels from welcoming and party-like to mesmerizing, then ominous on to contemplative, and finally out to an actual emotional release. It is a real journey.

The collaboration between the two masters has matured, deepened, become richer and tastier. While “Vientos” (in hindsight, really) sounds more like flamenco infused with Middle Eastern undertones, “Palace” allows the two genres to become much more seamless. On top of that, the electric instruments lend themselves to rock moments, while lyrics in Spanish, English, French, and Arabic further blur the lines between cultural influences. At the same time, the individual flavors of each language, each genre, and each artist are not lost; in fact, the individual flavors are distinct, appreciable, and truly enhanced.

I know I've got some mixed metaphors going on here, what with fabrics and foods, but that is what this album has evoked in me -- sensations as varied as touch and taste, sound and smell, memory and dreamstate. And all of that is exactly what should exist in a palace of dreams, isn't it?

To listen to samples of each track, head over to

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jaccomullerandvictorghan

where you can also buy the cd directly. I love cdbaby.com because they allow indie musicians to keep most of the money they directly make from these cd sales. Please support these incredible artists and do your soul a favor. Enter into the “Palace of Dreams.”

SEVILLANAS: HOW TO FIND A HUSBAND AND THEN SAVE ON MARRIAGE COUNSELING FEES

Sevillanas brought my future husband directly into my personal space. And, for better or for worse, Sevillanas always seems to keep us together.

So many young Spaniards learn Sevillanas from their grandparents, aunts, uncles. So many Spanish women buy a frilly new Sevillanas dress for Semana Santa – Holy Week, the week before Easter – every year. So many foreign flamenco dancers learn Sevillanas as their first official “choreography.”

If you want to see what Sevillanas looks like, watch this gorgeous film by Carlos Saura:

Every time I watch this film, I cry when I see those little kids at the beginning with all of their attitude. And then I cry harder during the next scene, when the elders sing and dance their hearts out in their orthopedic shoes. I was already in my mid-thirties the first time I laid eyes on that segment, and I knew instantly that that was what I wanted to be when I would ever grow up.

Why? Why was I so moved by this “simple,” often-taken-for-granted, traditional dance? Why does it hold such power over people? Why does it withstand not only the proverbial test of time, but, indeed, the test of life itself? Why do people dance Sevillanas for their entire lives?

We were rehearsing for a show that the company would have to travel for, and Teresa Cullen, the director of Los Preferidos Spanish Dance Company, which I had been asked to join a year and a half earlier, suddenly put me together with one of the guys in the company for a big, group number rendition of Sevillanas. Three squares of 8 dancers per square. As she was walking around the studio creating partnerships, I was strategically placing myself into a position that would make it as likely as possible to be paired up with this aloof guy, this guy strangely named El Polaco, this guy whom I had admired from afar for all this time but who seemed to outright ignore me. Whatever, right?!

But when a girl wants something, she can get pretty crafty. And so, the subtle maneuvering within the space. Sure enough, when Teresa got to our square she took barely a second to size us up, and, voila, my secret wish was granted! Yay! Uh, oh, but now I had to actually dance with the guy. Like most of the other company members, he had been at this flamenco thing way longer than I had. Gulp. Maybe I’m not so crafty after all. Maybe I’m just an idiot. Maybe – oh, no, music is starting, crap, time to… dance.

I felt completely exposed during that run through of that dance, I could feel El Polaco looking directly into the suddenly unhidden corners of my existence somehow. As we swirled around each other, close together and
then far apart and close again, I fully realized that it was the first time that a man was looking inside -- and I wasn’t afraid.

The director and everyone in that studio felt our chemistry immediately, and we would end up partnering each other in many other dances for many, many shows. Each of us is a pretty fiery personality, and we spend a lot of rehearsal time fighting – fighting over who is out of compas (rhythm), who is invading the other person’s space, who has the footwork all wrong. And with our personal, romantic relationship added to the equation, well, I guess all hell tends to break loose.

One night we arrived for a show at a restaurant that we performed at regularly, and we had been arguing about something-or-other all day, and it had continued during the car ride over. The owners of the restaurant
knew us well and always treated us well, too. They could tell something was terribly wrong the moment we walked in the door, and they started trying to counsel us – after all, they didn’t want us to blow their dinner and show, it was going to be packed as usual. I don’t think even a trained and licensed marriage counselor could have helped us that evening; we were still furious at each other by the time we were in our costumes and standing in the hallway, ready to burst onstage.

We always opened that show with Sevillanas – it’s exciting, with its tension between fast and slow, the feminine and the masculine, the teasing and the succumbing. That night was no different. Yet it is such a
crystal clear memory because it was so significant. As soon as we faced each other and the music coaxed us to enter into each other’s essences with that first step towards each other – all of the anger literally melted away. Problems, solved. Issues, erased. We learned a lesson: Sevillanas would always heal us.

Our marriage is a fairly rocky one, partly because of our personalities and partly because we’ve been dealt some very hard blows in our life together. Very hard. “For richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health” – oh, yeah, we know all of those things firsthand, and those things have come pretty close to, you know, “tearing us asunder.” Several times. But when it gets really bad, one of us at some point will remember to say, “Hey, how about a little Sevillanas?” The other person is usually reluctant (especially if that “other person” is me), wanting to hang onto the grouchiness. “Just one copla.” (A copla is one of the four sections of the whole dance.) The music starts, and with a heavy sigh we face each other, waiting through the intro of the song. But then we each take that first step – it’s a step towards each other – and then the step away,
and then the step towards again… we enter into each other’s very personal space, emotionally exposed and raw, but safe, enveloped and even cushioned within the tradition that, I believe, has healed the many people who step those steps of Sevillanas.

I will be teaching the first copla of Sevillanas starting Sept 7 in Koreatown in Los Angeles. You do not need to bring a partner, but if you do, you will be on your way to earning free classes! If you arrive solo or sola, well, who knows whom you might meet? After all, it’s Sevillanas...

NEW! COCO'S DANCE CLASS SCHEDULE PAGE AND HOW TO EARN FREE CLASSES

A zillion thanks to a new friend who will be returning to LA in a few weeks to take my new sevillanas with fan or hat technique class that I will be starting in September. Yesterday she gave me the idea to start a program to have students Bring 3 Get a Class Card Free. At first I was only going to do this for the new class, but then I realized, Why not reward my students who have been faithful during our summer of transition from studio to studio?

I've added a new page to this blog, COCO'S DANCE CLASS SCHEDULE, and there you can find not only the flyer for the ongoing Monday night class (and soon the flyer for the new Friday night Sevillanas with fan/hat class), but also the details about the new program. It's basically this:

Get 2 new people to take a single class, receive a single class free.

Get 3 new people to buy a 4-class card, receive a 4-class card free.

Get 5 new people to buy an 8-class card, receive an 8-class card free.

So check that out, and start lining up your people, bring them over to my people, we'll become a big studio full of people. Dancing. Flamenco. People. Free! http://juergablog.typepad.com/juergablog/cocos-dance-class-schedule.html

OPPRESSION/OBSESSION

Two months since the last post about the triumph over nerves while teaching my first two class sessions, and my excuse is, I hope, legit: When I arrived to teach my very next class, I was greeted by a not-very-happy studio owner who didn’t approve of flamenco shoes on her floor. The studio manager had assured me that the floor had been through much worse, and I had tested it before booking any studio time. It seemed fine. But the studio owner had peeked in on my classes, and on this night she gave me a rather violent rendition of her perception of flamenco footwork – all the more damaging to my ego because the way I teach footwork technique is, “allow gravity to take your foot from your perfect posture,” NOT, “aggressively slam your shoes into the ground while holding your hands in tight fists.” She then showed me the corners of the flooring – completely unrelated to our dancing, she did admit that – but she wanted me to see how the delicate paper veneer was already peeling off.  I crawled across the floor and was shocked to find the beginnings of dents where I stand and teach. I had no idea her floors were paper veneer – who builds a dance floor out of that?

The owner suggested that I teach flamenco in soft shoes -- in, you know, something like sneakers. Or, we could wear the flamenco shoes but do the footwork very, very delicately. I cancelled the class on the spot and began the search for a new studio. Again. This time I carried the pressure of having excited new students who had already paid for class cards. Every spare moment outside of my intense summer “day job” schedule was fully dedicated to securing a new space.

So many dead ends.

I almost gave up. I shifted from feeling oppressed to feeling like an outcast. Pfft -- why would anyone want to learn flamenco anyway? It’s not salsa, tango, or hip-hop. It’s not “Zumba” or “Cardio Barre.” Not to put any of those things down, but flamenco is not… “popular.” It’s somewhat obscure, it’s so serious, it’s too intense, how can it be any fun? It’s not the latest weight loss/fitness craze, and it doesn’t seem like a class for meeting guys/chicks. And worst of all, no one appreciates it, especially not studio owners. So… why am I even still thinking about it?

But after two weeks, one Middle Eastern arts studio said they didn’t have the physical space for a dance class right now but they were expanding and they love flamenco and want to have my classes in their new space when they are ready in 2013. They understand. Flamenco has its roots in the Middle East, so they understand. Still, 2013…

Finally a studio that I have driven by hundreds of times over the past two years emailed me with, “Flamenco would be a wonderful addition to what we already offer, and we have your time slots available. We only ask that you tape your shoes.”

Duct tape over the nails, done that a thousand times, such a common request that a roll of duct tape is a staple in my dance bag. Time to visit this studio.

Dance Studio No. 1, corner of Pico and Bundy, second floor http://www.danceno1.com/. A dancers’ studio. As soon as I walked in, I felt like I was 10 years old again – the unmistakable muffled clacking of toe shoes on the floor, piano music rippling into the hallway, teachers’ black canes with the white tips made for banging out tempos leaning in the corner. Signed the contract, paid the rent, and sent out the emails and facebook posts that we were back in class.

We’ve been dancing there for a month-and-a-half now. I love, love, love this floor, it sounds deep and thunderous and feels supportive and grounding, and the truth is that the years of dance classes before us have already given the floor enough appropriate wear that I don’t feel like we are dancing on egg shells. We have an occasional laugh at the grunting from the Karate class in the next studio, but what that means to me is that this is a busy, thriving place. And the people who work there are genuinely glad that we’re there. They printed my name and cell number in their fall flyer already – and I didn’t even know they had one out until last week when I asked about ballet classes for my sons.

Most importantly I’ve had the chance to answer the question, why do I even still think about flamenco? It’s my therapy. I find my strength there, my weaknesses. It’s my safe haven and the place where I confront my fears. I solve problems and share the solutions. And my students – even after only a month or so, I see the beginning of the obsession in their eyes. The focus, the desire, the frustration, the effort, the adjustment, the satisfaction; and then repeat, the focus, the desire, the frustration, the effort, the adjustment, the satisfaction.

After class last night, one of my students said it was like exercise for her soul. She’s a lifelong dancer, like I am, and a member of Pacifico Dance Company (http://www.pacificodance.com/best folklorico I’ve ever seen, ever). Early on in my flamenco training, I realized that very same thing. Flamenco may not be massively popular, but it’s deeply moving on an individual level; it may not be the latest hot thing, but once it has grabbed you, it doesn’t let go. And once you commit to flamenco – it becomes an obsession.

BACK IN THE GAME

A fellow flamenca who writes a funny blog of her own, www.marriedtothedance.com, wrote on my facebook wall Friday morning, “So glad you’re back in the game :-)” She was wishing me luck for my first night back at teaching dance class that night, an integral part of my comeback – which I have actually stuck to for 2 months and 3 days. Now that there are students involved, well, there’s no turning back. There’s no slouching, there’s no backsliding, there are no excuses.

I had been nervous all day Thursday and Friday as I put together my music choices and ran through the technique exercises that I wanted to cover in that first lesson. It’s been almost exactly 6 years since I’ve taught a class. Would I be able to talk while demonstrating and keeping time with the music? Would I be able to project in a studio that is pretty massive (and very nice, I might add, JOA Wellness and Performing Arts Center, www.joawellness.com, owned by the lovely Audry Jung and managed by the also lovely Sunny Stoltz). Have I gotten myself into good enough shape over the past few months to look like I belong up there? Will the sound system cooperate with me?

The first glitch was that everyone started calling my cell on their way to the class – lost! The studio is set way back from the sidewalk of a major street, Wilshire Boulevard, in LA. But that was throwing everyone off. There are these two tall, mirror-image office buildings with a courtyard between them, and you have to walk waaaaaaaaay to the back of the courtyard before you even see the studio on your left. I should have tied polkadot balloons out front. Or set plastic pink flamingos into the ground. Something.

We started late because of all of that confusion. At least we’re the last class of the night, so I was able to go overtime.

I had played around with the sound system earlier in the afternoon, and, yes, it did cooperate that night. A special thank you to Sunny for clueing me in on the little quirks.

So I started the music, faced myself in the mirror, faced my students in the mirror, and took that first breath, that first plié, and raised my arms overhead to lead dance students for the first time in 6 long years. I let the breath out and lowered my arms – and found myself able to talk. While moving. With good form. While looking from student to student and making corrections. And even praising them when they made the corrections. I was doing it! It was falling into place! I really was back in the game.

The class went so smoothly, and I actually covered more than I had planned. I still got to joke around here and there, but we got so much work done. Good, solid work. Everyone knew they were gonna be sore on Saturday, but in a really good way.

At the end of class, one of the students, a woman who has taken some flamenco before and whom I was just meeting for the first time Friday night, said she almost started crying during the closing of the class. I end my classes with a piece of music that may not necessarily be pure flamenco, but it’s usually something slower and emotional, and it has some relationship to flamenco; I improvise some movement and have everyone just follow along. There is never any talking or active teaching. It’s really more about entering into the music and breathing and feeling. I use this time as an opportunity to show people how much you can do with even just a little technique under your belt. Anyway, this student said she almost started crying because it was so beautiful. I told her and the class that if I start crying to just ignore me, and we all had a good laugh.

By the time I got home, which was quite soon as I live very close by, another one of the students had already posted on facebook that he “had hella fun taking flamenco class.” Then he added that he was trying to “get” my hands and that I had a very “natural” way of teaching flamenco. It took me hours to calm down enough to go to sleep.

Tonight, Monday, was my second night of teaching. Again a little nervous beforehand, I was tired from grading final exams in my day job, and I would have to dig deeper to give a good class. But, wow, people started showing up – a few students I knew, a few new students referred by a friend of a friend, and a student whom I had taught at Taos High School who recently moved to LA – and the adrenaline started pumping.

Ugh, another late start because of lingering difficulties with some people finding the studio as well as a technical glitch with the sound system – I knew it would happen one of these days – but once we got going, we really got going. This class covered even more ground than Friday’s class.

As always, I closed the class with improv movement, and when I finished and looked at everyone’s faces, they were all just melting with emotion. How wonderful.

As I was leaving, I ran into two students on the sidewalk; they have taken some flamenco before. And they both yelled out to me simultaneously, “Your arms!” Then it was a jumble of, “They’re so beautiful! Oh, my God! And you teach us all the details! What you said, I finally got it! Oh, my God! We're coming back Friday!” I gave credit for my arms to Ciro (see my blog post, 99% Work) and Vida Peral (see my blog post, Vida Peral, Dancer/Teacher/Choreographer) and then practically skipped home with the biggest smile on my face. Oh, man, Ciro would be so proud! (Oh, wait, I hope so. No, wait, he would be!) Confidence restored, no more nerves.    

Game. On.   

LLAMADA -- A CALL TO PLAY, HERE IN JUERGABLOG

I didn't get a chance to write a post last week because I'm swamped with writing final exams and generally scrambling in the end-of-semester crunch at my "real" job teaching human anatomy and human biology. This week doesn't look much more hopeful as far as blog writing goes.

But I would like to send a call -- a llamada -- out to all of my flamenco friends around the world to send me information about upcoming summer shows and workshops, and I will compile everything into a calendar.

And another llamada for any flamencos -- dancers and musicians, amateurs and professionals, aficionados and people who are just discovering flamenco -- who would like to write guest posts on this blog. As a virtual gathering place, I would like for this blog to be about much more than me, but about all of our experiences with flamenco, for it is an astoundingly powerful artform, personal and solitary yet universal at the same time.

One of my anatomy students from Iran mentioned to me that he was intrigued by the name "juergablog," specifically the "juerga" part. He said there is a similar Persian word that describes a gathering of people, a congregation. When I asked him to describe the word a little more, he said the word in Farsi can be pronounced Jirga or Jorge or Jarge, and it meant getting together and throwing a feast, traditionally to show the king the spoils of the hunt. I liked that it can also refer to a group of artists, writers, poets...

A "juerga" in flamenco is definitely a gathering, usually a party, and there always seems to come that point in time when someone opens up with palmas, and then someone starts singing. If there is a guitar anywhere in the vicinity, it makes it way into skilled hands. The spontaneous sharing of music has begun. Dancers dance, take their turns joking around or showing off if a buleria is playing, flirting with each other if it is a sevillanas... if everyone is really lucky, an impromptu solea or siguiriya will erupt. Ah, I just remembered Antonio Vargas pulling me into a siguiriya duet at a juerga in Taos once -- absolutely thrilling.

Some of the most stunning, raw, and genuine moments are shared in these improvised juerga moments. And I would like to somehow translate that energy onto the page here.

At any rate, please, if you have any summer info for me to post, or if you would like to write a post on this blog, comment below or send me an email, facebook message, or text. Let's all sing, dance, play, read, and write together.

Abran las palmas...

REMEMBERING MY AFICIONADA MOM ON MOTHERS’ DAY 2012

I had written this post in bits and pieces throughout the day this Mothers’ Day, but I didn’t feel worthy of actually posting it until I trained today and felt my mother’s presence through the music and movement. So here it is:

Mothers’ Day has been a bittersweet holiday for the past 5 years. My mother lost her valiant and longer-than-expected battle with colon cancer 6 weeks after my last pre-maternity leave performance.

It’s because of my mom that I had every opportunity as a child to take ballet classes, figure skating lessons, piano lessons; my siblings and I also performed Filipino, Hawaiian, and Tahitian dance all over NJ, and my mom acted as sort of our rehearsal dance mistress. But it’s also because of my mom that I didn’t pursue my dream of becoming a professional dancer and choreographer in college but instead got my very “practical” M.D.

We didn’t get along well at all, my mom and I, when I was growing up. We clashed over pretty much everything. I saw us as opposing poles on the earth. It wasn’t until my dad died that we began to see eye to eye. I started to appreciate her lessons about money and survival, and she started to realize that sometimes the most impractical things in life are the most life-sustaining.

My mom visited me a lot after my dad died, and it was during this time that I started dancing professionally. My mom flew halfway across the country to see my shows; she sat in on the company workshops that I attended, and she met the masters who taught them. The maestros called her “Mama” even though most of them were older than she was. She thought Luis Montero was the perfect gentleman, she thought Ciro was a shrewd businessman. And for some reason she thought Manolo Rivera would answer the question that burned inside her, so she asked him: “Why did you choose her?”

She told me that she had asked Manolo this question – Manolo Rivera, an artist so brilliant that his perfect technique is invisible – and I had to fight the lump in my throat. I was making money as a dancer – wasn’t that good enough for her?

Manolo, the man who first inspired me though his sheer beauty to take more than one class a week, gave her his answer: “She has something very special, a spark.” As she repeated this sentence to me, I heard her acceptance, her… satisfaction. She could finally admit that I was a dancer.

My mom would quickly embrace my life as a dancer. She traveled with me on one of my choreography-learning trips to Spain, and it was basically a grand shopping spree – her treat. It was also a time for us to talk – about men, about kids, about our disappointments and triumphs. It turned out that we had a lot more in common than I had ever wanted to admit.

In the end, I can say with 100% confidence that my mom was my Number One Fan. The last actual Mothers’ Day we spent together, she had come to Milwaukee to watch a recital of some of my students. While I was backstage preparing the students, I received the phone call recruiting me to rebuild the flamenco program at the University of New Mexico – Taos. So it ended up being a bit of a self-centered day. I would give back all those dresses she bought me for one more Mothers’ Day to focus on her, share everything I’ve got with her, show her a great day on the town… but she would never want that, the returning of the dresses. I know for a fact that she enjoyed buying those dresses and watching me perform in them as much as I enjoyed dancing in them. And as a mom myself I know how that really feels, the joy of watching my own daughter explore Los Angeles in a new/vintage beaded top and coordinating jaunty hat and sparkly belt from a major spree, my treat, glowing with her personal style -- she’s a theatre girl, a stage manager, you know…

So… perhaps the best I can do for now is keep on training. I still have a long way to go before I can unearth my beloved dresses and perform; my first official comeback show is coming up in the fall, and now I’ve got another one on the books next spring…

For those of you who still have your mom here on earth: enjoy her presence each day. For those of you who miss your mom because she’s not here on earth: go ahead and DO some THING that she would really like you to do. And, BTW, that fabulous, massive, red and black bata de cola that I'm wearing in the photos in the Simone Bonde, Photographer, post on the Marketplace page of this blog? Perhaps my mom's greatest purchase ever.    

GROWL

I had to scold one of my human anatomy classes for being too chatty during lecture this week, and it brought to mind a story that is very, very dear to me:

Antonio Vargas, who played the gypsy father in the Australian film “Strictly Ballroom” and who has travelled the world sharing his rich version of flamenco with the communities who always fall in love with him, is a close friend. I am simultaneously proud and humbled to say that I have shared the stage with him twice. But the first of those times was not as glamorous as it sounds. This is the story of that time.

I was hosting a workshop with Antonio in Milwaukee, and it was the second-to-last day. I received a phone call from some frantic person desperately begging me to agree to a last minute request for a performance; I had been recommended by a friend of his who had hired my dance company for a very lovely show at the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, http://www.villaterracemuseum.org/. Happy about such a glowing referral, I asked for more details.

The show would be the very next day, at a time that would be right after the workshop ended, for a grand opening of a bank in town. He had a decent budget to offer and wanted four performers. I told him I would get back to him after speaking with my dance partner and guitarist – and Antonio. If we were all very, very lucky, the Great One might agree to perform at a greatly reduced rate.

Everyone was available, and Antonio said he didn’t want me to lose a gig: he would do the show for the same amount as everyone else.

We rehearsed that evening. It was an easy rehearsal, as we all knew each other well and the show would be brief. Antonio wanted to perform a Siguiriya; I could barely keep up with palmas to accompany him.

There would be no costume changes, so we brought one costume each to the workshop the next day. The men changed at the studio, but I decided to wait until we arrived at the bank – I planned on wearing a bata de cola, and that was not going to fly in the car ride over.

When we pulled into the parking lot, I doubled-checked the address several times. Instead of the gleaming bank tower that I was expecting, we faced a local, run-down supermarket. As I searched for my contact’s phone number, said contact appeared, waving us in from the front doors.

I entered into my own personal Twilight Zone episode: the “bank” was two teller windows cut out of the far wall of this mom-and-pop place, with some “special” linoleum freshly laid to separate the bank from the rest of the dingy, outdated store. That linoleum had been cleared of a huge stand filled with lemons, just for us. And between our “stage” and the front doors stood the check out lanes.

My faithful guitarist, the venerable Peter Baime, was already busy setting up his equipment, and I turned to Antonio with every intention of telling him he could wait in the car til we were done. But he just smiled broadly, put on his flamenco boots, and began warming up.

Our now-beaming contact led me to the employee bathroom to change. “Dark” and “creepy” are nice words to describe the behind-the-scenes area of this place, complete with leering employees lingering in the shadows.

The bathroom itself had no hook to hang my costume on, but plenty of soggy lettuce on the floor to ruin my shoes on. I changed as quickly as possible, never allowing any bit of costume or street clothing to touch any surface, and saving my flamenco shoes for the luxurious linoleum.

I ran past the instant soup and toilet paper and cereal to our stage. The guys were ready to begin, and, frankly, I was ready to just get it all over with.

My dance partner, John "El Polaco," and I opened with Sevillanas. Simple enough. Until I realized I was hearing the “beep-beep” of the cashiers ringing up items. A few customers were watching us, but the rest were… checking out their groceries!

The beeps continued through John’s Farruca as well as our Caracoles duet. Some little boy banged his mother’s cart into the lemon stand at one point. A few lemons rolled onto the floor. I remember thinking how relieved I was that only a small handful of the workshop students were able to actually make it to this dismal affair.

And then it was time for Antonio’s solo.

Well… the Great One danced with a fury and a focus worthy of a command performance for a queen on the finest stage on earth. I could barely keep up with the palmas again, except for my excitement over his sheer presence.

There was no “beeping” from the cashiers. The world had stopped to watch the man dance.

I changed out of my bata de cola in the car with the guys guarding the windows – there was no way I was going back to that bathroom again -- and then we went out for much-needed drinks. It was at the restaurant that Antonio explained:

“It’s shows like those that make you into a tigress. Once you can reach every person in a place like that, you can reach the person in the back corner of a huge, beautiful theatre. It’s all the same. It’s all about being a tigress.”

Rrrrrroar!

     Antonio and me after watching a show in Chicago

 

   In "regular" life, Antonio is such a sweet man -- a pussycat. My (then-future) husband caught this end-of-the-evening moment. Many thanks to him for finding these photos.

99% WORK

I had only been studying flamenco for a year when Teresa Cullen, the director of Teresa y Los Preferidos Spanish Dance Company, the company I had been asked to join just a few months earlier, urged me to take the Ciro workshop she was sponsoring that summer. Someone had dropped out at the last minute, and she wanted me to fill the spot; I wouldn’t even have to pay for it! She insisted I could handle it. As ready as I didn’t feel, how could I turn down an opportunity to experience a living legend?

I stood in the very back of the tiny, cramped studio, sweating as much from the humid Chicago-in-July air as from my frantic efforts to mimic the wiry man’s exquisite movements. How in the world did he manage to do all that with his arms… and then the footwork… and the posture… but those arms…

I assure you, I was easily the least experienced and most pathetic dancer in the class. By far. Everyone who is anyone has studied with Ciro. And I was well on my way to becoming… no one, as far as I was concerned. It was a miserable two weeks of utter confusion: apparently, I didn’t really know how to count to twelve (Ciro was giving us a Solea), and my body was so unconditioned for the stresses of dancing at this level that I injured the base of my right big toe.

But Ciro is a gorgeous, gorgeous dancer to watch, and that alone was worth the agony.

The final day of the workshop arrived, and the choreography was a big tangle in my head. Each dancer took a turn to say an individual goodbye to the maestro as he unwound on the deck of Teresa’s home. I waited til the bitter end, the last dancer, half hoping that he never noticed that I was ever there in the studio.

Ugh, it was my turn, he was waiting for me, and I clunked up the wooden steps to face him. I forced a smile onto my mouth and a feeble “Gracias” from my throat and was turning to run away, when he said to me, “You, you are OK.”

Was he talking to me? The deck was empty. I just kind of nodded my head or something. He didn’t seem like the kind of person who would hand out fake compliments. Then he continued with the words that would define my career:

“Flamenco is 99% work and only 1% express yourself.”

That was it. I was dismissed. I think I actually did run away. But I don’t exactly remember. All I was thinking was, He thinks I’m OK, he thinks I’m OK! Kind of like that classic Sally Fields moment at the Oscars back in the 80s.

But the next day, I was working. Slowing down every movement, analyzing that man’s arms in my head and trying to reproduce them in my body, millimeter by millimeter, muscle fiber by muscle fiber. I relearned the footwork patterns and drilled them. And drilled them. And drilled them with a metronome as my accompaniment. (Ciro is an absolute stickler for compas.) Then came the painful process of layering armwork onto footwork – and attempting to make it all look beautiful and effortless. I don’t think I ever really made that particular solea look all that great as a company member. Days, months of work, and I was still, really, a beginner.

Now, here I am, a professional making a comeback, and what did I decide to do over this past week, after spending a few weeks focusing only on basic posture, arm and footwork exercises? I decided to work on the last choreography that I was working on, a delightful buleria from the fabulous Roberto Amaral in Van Nuys, CA; that was over a year ago when I thought I was making a comeback and started this blog. (Go ahead and read those 3 posts from 2011.) Luckily, I had videotaped the piece at the end of class, so I have been able to study it. And work it: remember the syncopation, the arms, the body movements, the myriad changes in direction… and slow it… all… down. Work every element separately, millimeter by millimeter, muscle fiber by muscle fiber. Then blend the elements together, slowly at first. And then gradually bring it all up to tempo together. Backtrack to correct mistakes, then continue to push to perfection. Ahh, how good it feels to work. 99% work.

When I first brought the final chunk of choreography back up to tempo, now worked so that my body could handle the choreography and the choreography could be alive in my body – I found myself smiling. Pure joy. 1% express yourself.

Ciro and I would work together many times more, one-on-one, on some stunning choreographies, and I can still confirm that he has always been absolutely right. This new buleria is far from what I would consider for myself “performance-ready,” mainly because I am not yet strong enough for a performance. (I videotaped myself, and I can see all of the weaknesses, certainly a topic for an upcoming post.) But I know for sure – thanks to the great maestro’s advice to a humble beginner – that as long as I put 99% of my effort into working on the technique for this piece, I will at some moment earn the freedom to express the 1% that is uniquely myself.

LLAMADA –

I have some precious photos of Ciro and myself (he actually used to call me “Preciosa,” and I’m a bit choked up at the memory of the nickname), but they are all still in storage in Santa Fe, NM, and I have no digital files of them with me here in Los Angeles. If anyone out there has their own photos of Ciro that they would be willing to share here, I would love to post them. Please let me know, and I’ll give you instructions for getting them to me. Thank you!

THE COMEBACK

Oh, brother, a year, 2 months, 2 weeks, and 4 days after my last post…

2011 was supposed to be all about my return to flamenco, but did that ever fall flat. Financial woes, three moves to two apartments in Koreatown including a stint in a motel while we waited for our current apartment to be ready, finding new health insurance, getting our 5-year-old proper care for his Type 1 diabetes and then registering him for kindergarten – but finding the right school first – then taking on a full-time teaching load at two colleges… flamenco was forced to take a back seat to “real” life.

Even though the things that needed to get done got done, even though I have enjoyed my “day job” as an anatomy and human biology professor (which is also a night job because I teach an evening class twice a week), even though I experienced some amazingly joyful and proud moments with each of my four kids… there has been a melancholy that has laced my internal landscape during most of my “alone” time. This deep sadness began when an old friend found me through a mutual old friend who had friended me on facebook – did you follow that? – and I was forced to question every single decision I have made since my sophomore year in college.

I tried so many methods to get my head back into the present – meditation, yoga, breathing exercises, visualizations, reciting mantras, writing cathartic letters, and plain old doing fun things that I like – but I couldn’t shake this self-generated torture. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure each of these methods works for other people. Just not me. Then, as this semester started, I started working out in the spectacular rooftop gym in my building; at least, I’m no longer a cardiovascular train wreck.

It wasn’t until I opened a not-so-silly fortune cookie that read, “Adding some art into your life will make you happier,” that I Woke. Up. Duh. I started a screenwriting project. So far I’ve got 6 motivated and talented people on board to turn it into a reality. Happy! Then I set up a theatre show on the site of the legendary Cocoanut Grove Lounge through the principal of my son’s school. Happy! I told my evening anatomy class about this show; it’s scheduled for the fall of this year. Still happy! One of the students – a house dancer himself – asked me if I was in training for the show. Uh, oh. Why am I not training?! Not so happy.

Happiness came back big time when I added flamenco movement practice to my gym workout the very next day and then taught my first new private student in 3 years that weekend.  I must say, first, there is no weight machine that can match the exercises required to build the flamenco posture. Second, there is no activity that brings me closer to my emotional center than this dance form.

After a few sessions of movement and core work only, I made myself a portable little wood floor that I can bring with me up to the gym. I’ve been working on footwork. It’s still clean, crisp. Just have to rebuild my speed and remember all the wonderfully complex combinations, but I’m OK with the process. I’m happy with the process. There’s that word “happy” again.

What is “happy”? I still have to handle the parade of problems that life continues to dole out. I still have to overcome the beast that is my own regret-filled mind. Maybe “happy” is not the goal. Maybe the goal is something that I saw the other day when I looked over at my full-length profile in the mirror in the middle of a combination. My intention was to visually check on my posture and make the necessary minute adjustments that I had trained myself to make after years of being corrected by some of the best choreographers on the planet. But what I was surprised to see – was my Self.

There it all was, under the sweat  and the layers of workout clothes and the bad hair: the strength that had been squelched, the confidence that had been toppled, and the sheer beauty that had been buried under my life stripped of its defining artform – the breathtaking expression of What Is Real that every flamenco dancer possesses when he or she is truly in the moment. It was all back, in that instant. And I saw it.

Thank you, Flamenco. And welcome back, everyone, to juergablog.