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.