Yesterday I started off the day with an early Argentinian lunch at El Patio with my friend Jason around 11:30am. We both ordered the lomito sandwiches--yum! Then we headed to American Dance Insitute afterwards arriving a bit late for the noon class. Jen was subbing as teacher for Anna Menendez. But Jason was kind enough to bring his cajon to play alongside me for the class.

Then at 1:00pm I got on the metro towards Bethesda for the 1:30pm Antonio Santaella workshop at the brand new facilities of the Joy of Motion, Bethesda branch.

For the first class, we worked on Tarantos which was very well-attended. Kinda wished I had my sound system cuz there were so many dance students my guitar was barely audible whenever they did footwork.

For the second, bulerias. Again a LOT of dancers, most of them unfamiliar faces to me, and most of them from the classes of Estela Velez. I would have taken pics but I was so busy concentrating on the workshop that I never got around to it. I did notice Estela taking a few pics and hopefully she'll send me a few.

At around 4:30pm, student dancer Aref gave me a ride to the Pink Flamenco so I could pick up my equipment in time for the sound check at Joy of Motion, Friendship Heights branch. Thank God for the ride, it was rainy rainy day. We grabbed a quick bite at Chipotle around the corner from my place.

Anyway, I was the guitarist for the show "Una Noche de Baile" featuring Furia Flamenca and students of the Spanish Dance Society. I'll be performing in this show again tonight (Sunday).

I only had one rehearsal last week and we just basically went through each dance a few times. Straighforward stuff needing only a few run-throughs and minor corrections except for the show itself, Antonio Santaella, incidentally Estela Velez's mentor, was taking on the role of cantaor at the last minute.

Now I'm not completely clueless about accompanying cante. As you know, I do accompany Gerard Moreno every Monday at Citrron in a variety of palos. But I had to quickly accustom myself to Antonio's style of singing the day of the show not to mention pay close attention to my dance accompaniment. It's always challenging playing for any group, professional or amateur, when there are so many dancers onstage at the same time!

Overall the show went very well. (Any performer who tells you everything was perfect in a show is probably stretching the truth. In any high-pressure performance--in other words all performances--with a large number of performers and stage crew members there's always at the very least some minor crisis which needs fixing.) On a technical note, my sound system was picking up the local radio station which has a high power broadcasting tower a few blocks from the studio. Fortunately, my guitar and Antonio's singing was much louder than the broadcast, whew!

As for tonight's show, we'll see how it goes. Sometimes the first show is especially good because everyone is so nervous about first impressions that they give it everything they've got, but then for the second show everyone relaxes too much and makes inexcusable little mistakes. Other times, the second night is a better performance because we've worked out the bugs that only appear under the pressure of the first night.

How does one maintain consistent concentration, inspiration, energy etc night after night? Everyone has to discover what works for them individually. You can read all the books you want, get advice from experienced performers etc but ultimately you just have to get out there and rack up some experience onstage. It's a totally different world!

It's 1:43pm, I'll get back to editing Ginette's photos when I get home. Right now I need to get ready for Antonio's workshop which starts at 3:00pm in Bethesda and from there we go straight to the theatre to get ready for tonight's show. Wish me luck!