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...
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