Claudia, Nelson Sitton and Serenity at Tapeo. May 4, 2007 8:02pm
I can almost hear you saying to me: it's not Cuatro de Mayo, Miguelito. It's Cinco de Mayo. True. But c'mon, do you honestly know the significance of this date? (dramatic pause) Um, yeah. I didn't think so. 
Don't worry about. I'm a college graduate (a classical guitar major, for what it's worht) and I don't even know. In any case, all that matters to me was that it was Cuatro de Mayo and it was a gorgeous day last Friday. 'Cept I had to get myself out of bed really early to squeeze in a couple of errands before heading over to Jaleo in Crystal City to do a school show (sorry no pics).
Admittedly, I was a bit on the grumpy side from insufficient sleep, but I was happy to be working with dancer Ginette Perea. Usually she and I perform together all the time, but let's not forget she's still in college: she wanted to take time off from flamenco to study and prepare for finals.
If you've been to Jaleo in Crystal City, you know the layout is not really conducive to giving flamenco presentations. But I'm a pro which means I'm used to dealing with a variety of situations and figuring out on the spot how to make the best of it and do my job. Just something you learn with experience. So I spotted the best place to designate as the stage, setup my sound system and cranked up the volume so that the students in the back of the room could hear me, setup some stagelights so that everyone could see us, then we chilled out for about 20 minutes and mentally prepared our presentation.
It's funny how just about all the dancers I work with know me as a quiet person, but when it comes to presentations they let me pretty much all the talking. Which is totally cool with me. I'm pretty comfortable with public speaking and I don't work with a script, just a general outline. It comes out more natural when you speak spontaneously and besides I know the subject well enough that I could probably talk about this forever.
But we just paid attention to our audience and got straight to the point when we could see their attention waning and elaborated more on other points when we could tell they were interested. (These were high school students.)
At one point, while speaking about dance accompaniment, my microphone stand broke (yeah seriously!) but I kept going and played it off by saying, "Oops. My stand just broke. But in flamenco, no matter what happens, you have to keep going." Turned out for the better anyway, since I could now lay the microphone on the floor to pick up the sound of Ginette's footwork. (The floor here at Jaleo is wood on top of concrete--not ideal for flamenco.)
Half an hour later, we finished our presentation. The students learned about ten new flamenco-related words, gained an appreciation for the importance of live music in flamenco, enjoyed Ginette's lively interpretations of alegría and soleá. As for myself (and Ginette) we felt like we did our good deed for the day and perhaps converted a few of these kids into future flamencos. We'll see.
Nelson and Claudia. May 4, 2007 8:27pm
Afterwards, Ginette dropped me off at Tapeo so I could drop of my equipment since I was performing there that night anyway. Got some lunch at the mall's food court and walked around the mall figuring out how to spend the rest of the day.
While I was at the Kenneth Cole store, I ran into Serenity which was a nice surprise. She happened to be taking the day off. So we ended up finding a table in the courtyard in front of one of the restaurants and spent the afternoon working on our tans and drinking cold beers and eating crepes, yum!
Claudia and Miguelito. May 4, 2007 8:30pm
One by one, our friends joined us and by 7:00pm (yeah we were there that long!) we had a group of five. But I had to leave for Tapeo, a few doors down. And they said they'd see my show and sure enough they did!
Nelson chatting with Carol just before going onstage. May 4, 2007 8:33pm
My face was red due to the beers and probably a bit of sunburn. But I didn't really care: the leisurely hours spent with friends, not to mention the gorgeous weather, put me such a great mood. Nothing could phase me.
Nelson and Erica. May 4, 2007 9:21pm
Monica, Miguelito and Carolina. May 4, 2007 9:27pm
Nelson with Rachel and her sister Serenity. May 4, 2007 9:30pm
By 11:00pm, we had to call it a night. I almost forgot that I was sleep-deprived from the night before. And by the time I got home sometime past midnight, I went straight to bed. Dead tired but with a smile on my face.
OK, done blogging for the day. For the next entry, I'll need to get da pics from Sunday's gig at the Chrysler Musem of Art (in Norfolk near Virginia Beach). My camera battery died so I had to use Jason's camera.
Just to give you a little tease, here's one of the pics I took before my camera pooped out on me...
Dance students of Vicky Cooke at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia. May 6, 2007 2:14pm
) and thankfully I was able to get my friend Chris Kobar to take pics during the first set. Although the sun was still out during the show (which took place outdoors), the stage lighting was strong enough to add just the right amount of dramatic touch. Enjoy the pics...
I'm going to try to crank out a few more blog entries today so stay tuned.
Many flamencos all over the USA and around the world visit my website--and this blog that you're now reading happens to be the most visited section of my website!)
But c'mon, we live in a historically significant city that is truly beautiful and although we've all probably done the tourist thing at least once, there is so much more for us to explore and revisit on a regular basis.
