Flamenco
The guitarist strums and catches notes that bend and descend in a flurry of fingers. With a breath, the singer emits a cry that pierces, trembling, then matches the cadence of the guitar…Without warning, the dancer explodes into a contrapuntal rhythm meted out in heel strikes against the floor, building until the tension is resolved, and the dancer stand still, resonating with purpose, as the musicians begin anew.----Michelle Heffner Hayes,“Flamenco: Music, Movement and Meaning,” from The Living Dance. An Anthology of Essays on Movement & Culture, eds. Judith Bennahum and Ninotchka Bennahum, Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Publishing, May 2012
It's not about the steps...
Angeles Gabaldon said this to me when I was training with her in the 2007 Festival de Jerez.
Learning flamenco is a lifelong practice, particularly if you have not been steeped in the culture from an early age. You could spend years studying a single palo, or song form. When I teach flamenco, I focus on the ways in which the body "speaks" through the acquisition of a way of moving and being, its colocacion, but also through the coded vocabulary and structures that create the language of flamenco.
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My scholarship in flamenco deals with how culture and history imprint themselves across bodies and time. Reading performance in flamenco lends insights to the ways in which race, gender, sexuality and class are constructed in different contexts.
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For instruction, choreography or public presentations, please contact mhayes@ku.edu.
