I often find myself frustrated by flamenco dance being treated as secondary, or just “lesser” than ballet and contemporary dance, as something not to be taken seriously. I think there are many reasons for that, some deeply rooted in [...]
"What the world needs now is dance." With a provocative title such as that, I was pretty excited to read the article on Dance Magazine's online content page. Anyone who knows me, knows I believe if we're ever going to [...]
Here are some basic leadership lessons I am slowly but surely learning the hard way, and go figure, they are all connected. I am not exactly a natural leader. I step in to leadership roles if need be, but it's [...]
The most "flamenco" experiences I've had outside of Spain were not flamenco at all. One was a break dance battle at Wayne State University in Detroit and the other was a jazz concert in Albuquerque at the African American Performing [...]
Someone said to me the other day: why don’t you rent studio space at X studio and teach classes there, you know the owner is very collaborative. Wait, what? What does collaboration have to do with where I rent studio [...]
Here are two words I am absolutely sick and tired of hearing, mostly because they are misused: community and collaboration. This blog post will address the first one, and the latter will be addressed in a future blog post. Let’s [...]
Radical ideas that shouldn't be radical (in flamenco more specifically, but in other dance forms too): 1) holding auditions 2) letting dancers wear their natural hair (i.e. not slicked back) 2.5) letting dancers be individuals 3) not choosing dancers based [...]
No one person is the be-all end-all. Well, maybe your kids, or grandkids, or significant other are your world. But that's not what I'm talking about. In the dance world, I've seen dancers flock to a single person and talk about [...]
I think artists often get pigeon-holed by audiences, critics, and even their peers. And I think that sucks. Big time. I've heard through the grapevine that people talk about my shows as "out-there contemporary stuff" that they're not interested in. [...]
Lineage in dance, and particularly in oral dance traditions, carries a great deal of weight. Without respect for those that passed the traditions on to us, we lose the essence of the art form. And without allowing our students to [...]
