Origins of Flamenco in Atlanta
As a flamenco teacher, I changed the way that I instruct students about ten years ago, when I launched a cuadro class in Atlanta. Back then, we were a community of dancers who wanted to work with live musicians, but there weren't any in Atlanta who understood how to play or sing flamenco music. So, I started bringing in guest teachers who could instruct in guitar and singing, while I could still teach dance and explain to the groups of students how it all worked together. At its core, flamenco is an improvised art form, and rather than learning to recite pieces of music and choreographies, we truly want to learn the rules and stockpile vocabulary and phrasing that can be exchanged in a conversation between the musicians and the dancers. I knew in 2009 that it would take ten years to cultivate a musician base in Atlanta, as well as dancers who could work in that base. I am so happy to report that we have that base here now. While I no longer teach the cuadro class, I give private lessons focused on this element of flamenco. It is very exciting to watch students become practitioners of flamenco arts as they learn the rules of the road. Dancers have to become musicians, and musicians have to play and sing like they are dancing.
Company and Performance Events: Berdolé & A Través
Berdolé was created when I started to go on tour more as an artist and at the same time, I started to manage artists who were performing in and beyond metro Atlanta. Through this company, I have been able to take my arts integration practice throughout the Southeast. I have also staffed performances from New Orleans to New York and created a U.S. tour for an important Spanish artist whose methodology I support immensely. Most importantly, prior to the pandemic, this company produced six years of sold-out performances throughout Georgia and permitted Spanish artists and local artists to perform together. This rare opportunity allows local artists to have the experience that they might gain by moving to and working in Spain. It permits our audiences to see a high level of flamenco on the stage, so that we all rise up in the joy of this art form. Concerts are scheduled to begin again in 2022.
A Través established two large-scale annual events: The Atlanta Flamenco Festival and La Feria Atlanta. The multi-week festival presents world-class flamenco artists in two kinds of concerts. One showcases innovation and contemporary flamenco, which pushes the art form forward, and the other showcases traditional powerhouses that remind us of where flamenco is rooted and why the art form touches us emotionally. La Feria Atlanta is a small-scale recreation of La feria de Abril, which happens in Seville (Spain) annually, as a celebration of spring. This event is community-driven, and creates a social context for flamenco, which is something that we don't have in Atlanta.
Teaching Flamenco to the Atlanta Community
The artists of A Través go into the community to teach adults and children about flamenco music, rhythm, dance, singing, and lifestyle. We have offered after-school classes for elementary, middle, and high school students, and the artists who visit Atlanta to work in our events teach in this after-school program. We use flamenco as a vehicle to teach curriculum standards of grades K-12 in public and private schools. At times, artists set choreography for major performances, and at other times, they inject important and special music and dance elements into our studies so that young dancers can perform flamenco in community events. This outreach always results in unexpected exchanges that offer new perspectives to the students, as well as the artists. The same thing happens when local flamenco artists work with the visiting artists in performances. This has become a special part of my work that I cherish. The curiosity of the students showcases an understanding of the world around us a little better, so that we may see ourselves more clearly in the end.
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