God made her eyes…
Dance is not the footsteps. It is what happens between steps.
Antonio Gades
This afternoon at Tangos Por Fiesta class I made an entrada into the circle…
The circle is when the class seats itself around the dancer and does palmas (rhythmic clapping) in compas with the guitarist, and the singer…
Although we typically dance in a group, as students, flamenco is a solo dance…
and circle time is where a dancer can learn to prepare for the solo…
Even though I get vertigo just before I go onto this centre stage I make myself do it…
I have issues of perfection that I am working on…
If I can’t do something well, to the high standards I set for myself, I won’t do it at all…
Unless I feel compelled to…
And I am compelled to become a good enough flamenco dancer…
And in this place, in this class, with these women around me, I can grow myself in this department because it is a very safe space for learning…
In the circle, like when watching a flamenco performance, the observers call out words of encouragement…
And today my teacher spoke words that came to me like the bricks I need to help me build the bridge from where I am now to where I want to go tomorrow…
Building the bridge as I dance on it…
Her words came as whispers from her eyes that said…
Listen to the music…
Wait… wait… wait…
Get ready to walk on the stage…
wait…
Prepare yourself…
wait…
Listen to the singer…
Now get ready…
Now go…
Walk on…
In a circle…
Walk, walk, walk…
Give the singer a signal that you’re ready to dance…
dance, dance, dance…
The thing that is so perfect about flamenco is that it gives permission to do and be all of the things that you were told as a child you shouldn’t…
Flamenco gives you permission to make your belly and your behind so much bigger than they really are…
Permission to lock your knees out…
To sniff your armpits mysteriously…
To be serious…
Confident…
Angry…
Sad…
Pained…
Happy…
Joyful…
and proud…
A classmate said to me after I made my salida and sat down…
You really don’t have any idea how good you are…
And I don’t yet…
because I have voices inside of me that I often don’t even know are there…
Voices that speak louder than words…
After my turn in the circle my teacher gives me some critique…
and she dances with me…
She is learning that I learn best by feeling and doing…
She recognizes that my body needs her body to dance…
Her cells sync up with mine as she moves…
And then with some practice, looking both inside and outside at the same time…
Rooted in self-trust…
I can go O solo mio…
Today my good enough dancer made friends with my good enough mother…
integrating feelings of embarrassment and fear of judgement as rebar in setting cement…
Flamenco is born from feeling…
The technique is not the same as 100 years ago…
The younger generation has a lot of knowledge and virtuosity…
WE try to do everything perfectly…
but we should also leave space for feelings and emotions and the artist’s personality….
On stage you have to be able to say:
Ladies and gentlemen…
This is me…
This is my heart…
Do as you wish with it…
Belen Lopez
Buyer beware…
Yesterday morning I had the privilege of sitting in a room with eleven young women, between the ages of 19 and let’s say 32…
Chronologically I’m yesterday’s news, so to speak…
and I love it…
We were discussing two articles, one by Sunera Thobani and another by Yvonne Boyer…
on the subject of the ongoing violent objectification of aboriginal women in Canada initiated with colonialism and the Indian Act…
and how the work of contemporary female First Nations Canadian artists speaks to the legacy and presence of these realities…
The case of the Cowichan Sweaters and the deal with VANOC came up for the third time in as many weeks…
Do you know that in the history of this coast, and not so long ago, it was illegal for aboriginal women to speak their own language, knit, make pottery, dance and sing???
Written in LAW…
This is a mere pointing to the atrocities that aboriginal people have, and continue to experience on this land we call our home…
All in the name of reason…
I have sat in a lot of PhD. and Master’s level seminars in the last four years and the calibre of conversation, analysis, strength, and sensitivity I am witness to in this group blows all of those experiences out of the water…
Like the people who have been here for thousands of years…
these women are refusing to play dead…
Bringing a wealth of wisdom to the table with great respect…
A few weeks ago one of my classmates, a woman in her early twenties, told me a short story… and she gave me permission to share it in this context…
She is looking for the perfect desk, on Craigslist…
She said that when she contacted the individual who was selling the desk by phone the seller asked her a lot of questions…
the kind of questions one might be asked if one was applying to a dating service…
Like most of us who are curious and friendly, but not naive…
sometimes it takes us a while to clue in to the fact that the people we are engaging with have hidden agendas…
our guts tell us but due to indoctrination, our heads take some time to catch up…
Mr. DeskforSale chatted her up about being a student, where and what she was studying ETC.
When she told him that she was a Woman’s Studies major he said,
Oh, that’s kind of like what I do…
with Craigslist…
I help women meet men...
Both cluing in and trying to be diplomatic she said back,
Well that isn’t really the same thing…
and in your case you’re only attending to women who are heterosexual…
you’re leaving out a whole other group of people…
And then he said, Oh… now I get it… you’re into that…
She was glad that her dad went with her to look at the desk…
for support…
She didn’t go for it…
or the rug he had for sale…
because the desk was clearly being used as bait…
I used to live alone before I knew you...
Canuck'd 