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Lisner's Flamenco Festival 2007 Contest
Friday February 9, 2007: Paco de Lucía As you might expect, the tickets will sell very quickly, so I urge you to visit Lisner's website and order your tickets today. Of course, I know flamencos like yourself, being the spontaneous people you are, will probably wait until the last-minute. Tsk, tsk! :-) So I'm here to help promote the festival with this year's contest. The prize:
The winner who was randomly selected from the correct entries: Tina Tan. Congratulations Tina! “I do not know how to define myself; I'm still trying to find myself.” “I like working with musicians, letting them create music and searching that music for what motivates me and where, in what place inside me does it hurt me or affect me.” “Respect for the greats can't be forgotten, but nor that they've given us the freedom to move ahead” “They say that the woman has the sensual dance, the feminine...But there are women who are not sensual or feminine and they must draw on other feelings.” The quotes were taken from interviews published at Flamenco-World.com: Isabel Bayón, Rafaela Carrasco, Paco de Lucía and Sara Baras. Note: emails from all entries were added to Lisner's E-newsletter list. Thanks to everyone who participated. If you didn't win, at least you learned a little more about these artists. See you at Lisner's Flamenco Festival 2007! Introducing Carmel ShellyDecember 8, 2006 Although, dancer/teacher/choreographer Carmel Shelly has been in the DC area for more than a year now, I just finally got around to interviewing her a few weeks ago. I first saw Carmel perform with Ziva's Spanish Dance Ensemble at Dance Place in December 2005 and most recently at the Kennedy Center Millenium Stage, also with Ziva, in September 2006. She will be appearing in Edwin Aparicio's Camino / al flamenco production this Sunday December 10, 2006 at the Gala Theatre-Tivoli. Where did you get started learning flamenco and how did it get you to where you are today?
Do you study with any particular teachers in Madrid? When I arrive there I just look at who's giving classes to see who interests me. So every year, I take classes with Domingo Ortega and with Manuel Reyes because I really like the way they teach. Each time I have a different kind of inspiration. And the few last years, what I've done is take privates with the younger dancers, not really the famous names, but the ones that I really appreciate what they do and believe that I can learn a lot from. And just working one-on-one with them instead of taking [group] classes. Just taking privates and learning choreographies with these younger dancers, females especially, I find that they're really "fresh" and that's it's easier to catch new things from them. It's more of an individual experience for me. And of course, I also study with Manolo Marín from Sevilla. He's one of my masters because he's really involved with what's happening in Israel. He comes every year. We have a big competition in Israel, once every two years. It's usually one of the younger upcoming artists and him. He teaches us a lot. And I perform with him in Israel. What is your favorite palo? It depends. [laughs] It comes and goes. Sometimes alegría. Sometimes tangos. It depends on my mood, my feeling of the spirit, my life and all those things. I don’t have something that is really more special. It used to be seguiriyas for a long time.
When I first started almost 17 years ago, there weren't that many guitarists. Flamenco was just getting popular. We used to work only with records. But since then things have really changed. More guitarists went into flamenco. We try to use the guitarists in the classes and then we do choreography with [recorded] music because guitarists are not always available. I'm trying to work as much as I can with guitarists. It's really very important. But I cannot say that it's always happening that way. We don't have that many flamenco musicians in Israel. But the shows we always do with live music in the last six or seven years. What is the level of flamenco in Israel? It has come to a more professional level now but it wasn't like that in the past. Since this competition in Israel started, people have started to take flamenco very seriously. They study and take master classes. We have very good dancers. My older sister is a dancer--seven years older. And she's very good. And we are five or six professional flamenco dancers in Israel that are well-known and that work in the biggest productions. And the flamenco population is so big now--for a country the size of Israel. Flamenco has become very professional. Have you been to the USA before? I've been here before as a tourist when I was a teenager. So now actually it's the first time that I've been here as a resident. What is your opinion of the flamenco here in DC? I was amazed. It's much higher than my expectations. And I'll tell you why. When you go to Amor de Díos and you see Americans, they are not the highest level dancers that you see there. When I came to DC, I didn't realize that there are a lot of Hispanic-American people here that I met like Anna Menendez, and Edwin Aparicio that are really professional, wonderful dancers--really high level. So I was so happy to see that. At first I thought I would just keep doing what I'm doing as I did in Israel but now I have really challenging things to do with them. They have nothing to be ashamed of in comparison to the level of artistry in Spain. In Israel I don't have teachers anymore. My colleagues and myself are the teachers there now. So I thought it was going to be the same here. And lately, I just met all these wonderful dancers like Genoveva and Anna and Edwin and I can learn a lot from them. So it's challenging and wonderful. I understand that you enjoy teaching children. What do you think American beginner students need to make ideal progress in flamenco? This is my second year teaching youth--and actually this is my specialty. I really love to teach kids. It's not that I don't like to teach adults. But I found that this is what I'm good at. I like taking these 8 or 9 year old kids to when they're 16 or 17 and building them into dancers. And so I'm teaching kids now at CityDance at Strathmore. And it's funny because I have a big group of girls and I'm teaching the same type of girls that I taught in Israel. And it's all the same. It doesn't matter where in the world. So just as everywhere you have to first understand and learn as much as you can besides steps and technique to understand what you're doing. What is the singer singing? What is the rhythm? What is the count?
Don't take a thousand classes so you can say you learned with this teacher and that. Take classes and really understand what you are doing--even if you don't think it's your level, maybe a little below you. So this just my theory. But it's not just here. It's everywhere. When I take really high level classes, I must understand what's going on. I mean, I can't just mimic the teacher and later brag, "Yeah I learned with so-and-so." But then what are going to do with what you just learned? So you really have to understand the compás, where you come in, where you go out. At point would you introduce the idea of cante structure in your classes? I'd definitely wait until much later. I believe that too much information in the beginning won't give much help--only confusion. I think that in the beginning, people love flamenco because they saw it somewhere or they heard about it and they feel it's going to be wonderful for them. But they cannot understand the whole idea from the beginning, the whole culture, the whole idea of singing, cante and guitar all together. It's too much. I can tell you from my experience. You must understand the basic ideas first. What is the rhythm? What is the compás? What are the basic steps? And step by step, you start to explain about llamada and why you are doing llamada. And now the guitarist and singer are coming into the picture. In the beginning you've got to tell them, "OK, you've got to call the guitarist." And then you can explain why you are doing a llamada and why it signals to the guitarist that you are going to end this section of the dance. This is exactly why I'm at Strathmore now with the little girls where they're learning a beginning alegrías. I won't explain about singing right now. It's too much information for them. But when they end the introduction [to the alegrías], I tell them they do a call. And they look at me and ask, "What do you mean, a call?" This call is supposed to signal the guitarist to stop or to start a new section. So at some point much later, I'll start to explain about singing. I think it's the hardest thing to explain to them. For example, why you have to make a remate here, OK? But they just have to listen to a lot of cante. It takes at least--well it depends on how many classes you take per week--until the second year. But the first year it's just structure of the body, structure of the steps, compás. It's the way I do it. I know that there are a lot of people going immediately into advanced classes. And maybe they are really talented. But I think it's a problem because in high level classes, the basic steps are never explained. And when you are taking high level classes without the proper foundation in the basics then you don't understand why you are doing these steps. Why are you ending here? Why are you starting there? So step by step, it takes a while. It's something you have to learn and you're learning all the time. Even after all these years, I still hear more in the singing and keep learning and learning. Most students take flamenco classes just to have fun, get some exercise or whatever. They have no desire to become performers, which is fine. Nevertheless, what you do suggest for a student to do outside of class to make the ideal amount of progress? First of all, you're right. It's not right to just teach for professional dancers. I think our aim is to first teach the culture. I think that only one in a thousand is going to be a real professional dancer that's going to do this all his life. Just like any other dance, practice as much as you can. Be prepared for the next class. It gives you a lot of self-confidence when you know exactly what you have to do. And then listen to a lot of flamenco music. And watch lots of flamenco videos and shows. I made my biggest leap in progress when I came to Spain. They have classes everyday. This is the way you can go inside flamenco and experience it every day, every day. Once or twice a week is wonderful but it's not enough to get you to a professional level.
I teach at CityDance at Strathmore. I teach at Ziva's studio for her advanced class. I did teach some classes at DC Dance Collective but it was in the morning and not that many people could come so instead I'll just do master classes in short periods. And I teach in the middle school twice a week in a program through Strathmore. It's really an amazing experience for me. [Editor's note: Carmel just informed me that she will start teaching again at DC Dance Collective on Wednesdays 7:30pm-8:30pm for Beginners level 1 and 2 and 8:30pm-9:30pm for Intermediate level.] At the DCFlamenco website, I have more than twenty dance teachers listed which is great on one hand because there are many to choose from but it can be overwhelming for many of my readers. As a teacher, what do you bring to the DC flamenco community that's unique or different? I'm not going to tell you that I'm better than anyone else. I'm just going to tell what I think is important for me as a teacher and what I'm trying my best to do. I believe that as a female we have to use our bodies. I admire the way a lot of dancers use footwork. I know it's really hard and complicated and I'm doing that myself. But then I have a touch of modern in my flamenco dancing and I'm trying to pass on to my [female] students to use more and more of their body, to dance more as a female and not to concentrate only on footwork. What I like when I see a dancer is when I see her beautiful braceo and beautiful movements of her body, I feel that she really is dancing. Because this is what it's all about. It's a dance. It's not something really mathematical, really complicated that you have to think only about contratiempo. It's really important to have all that but then don't forget to dance as a female. And that's what I'm trying to do in my classes. I'm doing a lot of arms and turns and focusing on how to use your hips and shoulders and your lines. To clean the lines, it's really important because often you're so into the step that you forget to understand how it looks. And you have to stop and think, "Where am I? Where are my lines? My head, where do I look?” So these are things that I'm pretty good at. I admit that I'm not that good with males. I didn't learn how to teach males that much. I can do nice things with them but it's not my specialty. I’m really proud of my dancers in Israel. When they go to the competitions, the main things people comment on are how they move, how they dance, that they are really feminine, that they are not that tough. That is what I really try to focus on. What projects do you have coming up? I have the show on December 10th with Edwin. And then I have the Corcoran Gallery of Art in March 2007 with Ziva and the group from New York. And then I continue to do the school shows. Where do you see yourself going artistically in the next few years? To study as much as I can. To improve myself. And to be involved with these professional productions. Because of my experience in Israel, I'm more of a theatre dancer [as opposed to a tablao dancer]. I really enjoy performing in theatres. And I wish I could more outside of DC too. Is there anything else you'd like to say? I think we talked about everything. I really appreciate you giving me this chance to tell the DC flamenco community about myself. I hope that I can help people understand flamenco more. Or to find an idea that they didn't think about when I teach. This is my aim. So that they will remember Carmel as one who opened a new window for them in flamenco. I love to perform but most of all, I love to teach. A lot of dancers are teaching because they have to make money. I teach because it's the way of my life. I love it. Camino / al flamenco at the Gala Theatre-Tivoli on December 10, 2006November 28, 2006 Camino / al flamenco: a story of immigrants' struggles at home and an exploration of emotional travel to a foreign land. War, love and survival through flamenco. You may remember the première of this show last year, and if you missed it, now's your chance to see it at the beautiful new stage of the Gala Theatre-Tivoli on Sunday December 10, 2006 at 4:00pm. Buy your tickets now! Even if you went last year, there's still a good reason to see it at the Gala Theatre-Tivoli: the opportunity to see several exciting new artists included in this production that weren't in last year's show. I'm not going to tell you who these new artists are. You're just going to have to go to the show and find out yourself! But to make up for the suspense I'm putting you through, here are your chances to win one free ticket:
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The contest is now over. All you had to do to qualify for the drawing was match all the quotes with the correct flamenco artists. Incidentally, all the artists in this contest quiz are the ones performing at Lisner so this is a good time to read up on them!
Actually I started back in Israel. My first teacher was Silvia Duran who’s very famous in Israel. She was a dancer back in the 50's in Spain and she's my first teacher actually. I was performing in her group. And then I went to Spain to study. First I was there for a long while, like a year. Except for 2006, I've been going annually to study in the Summer or in the Fall. I've been a few times in Sevilla but usually I'm in Madrid at Amor de Díos.
When you were studying in Israel, did you have live guitar and live cante or did you work with recordings a lot?
Most of the time, students take a lot of lessons and a lot of master classes and they get a lot of material but then when they have to dance it they don't really know what they’re doing. And when they come and tell me, "I learned this beautiful choreography." And I tell them, "Show me." They often don't know where to start. I ask, "What is the rhythm?" And they don't know how to count it.
Where are you currently teaching?
CONTEST #1 Over the past few years, dancer Edwin Aparicio has collaborated with internationally-known flamenco artists in several highly successful shows all over the United States. From which of the following shows was this photo taken?
This first contest ended Friday December 1st. Thank you to everyone who entered. All except one gave the correct answer which is 
CONTEST #2 This next photo was taken at a rehearsal which was in preparation for what show?