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.