However, my Irish mother had brought with her to Canada a love for music and kitchen dancing. This meant that on a regular basis all the neighbours in our Greek area of Toronto were invited for entire nights of eating, drinking, and old school Greek dancing in our basement. I would watch from the stairs, amazed at the transformation of these quiet, taciturn older Greek men into charismatic, sexy, dancing machines. I’m sure the countless bottles of Retsina didn’t hurt, but watching the ritual impressed upon me the idea that dancing was something communal and cathartic—a force that had the power to unite people.
Soon I began my own kind of dance training, spending hours in the garage in solo dance marathons to the Grease soundtrack and a girl band called the GoGos. These dances were purely escapist, unfettered jam sessions, and soon mum decided that ballet would add nicely to my routines.
Although in hindsight I won’t deny the benefits of ballet, it proved to be a far more humbling experience than expected. My body felt large, exposed, and painfully un-coordinated, especially when I was placed beside “Margaret,” an unusually small girl with perfect, doll-like proportions that made our ballet teachers all but drool on the bar.
That I ended up taking seven ballet classes a week for eight years is really a testament to how much my mother wanted to be a dancer herself. At 15, when I was old enough to make my own decisions, I quit. But mum had new plans for me. She had just begun taking flamenco dance classes and wanted me to join her.
I had no idea what flamenco was. There were only a few people teaching it in Toronto back then and it had not caught on in the collective consciousness the way it has in the past decade and a half. So, initially, I resisted with all the delicateness that only a fifteen-year-old who is well aware of her rights can muster.
But on one bleak Sunday while I was watching a French channel on T.V., everything changed for me. Unable to comprehend a word of French, I was set to turn off the telly when the screen erupted with the most amazing scene of pained singing and intensely rhythmic dancing. I felt a wave of excitement and euphoria wash over me. The feeling tingled and made my hair stand on end. The film I had discovered was Carlos Saura’s Carmen, and in that moment I realized that this way of moving and expressing made sense to me on a fundamental and soul-satisfying level. It was the beginning of my career as a flamenco dancer.
At the age of twenty, I moved to Granada in southern Spain to study flamenco for a year at a school called Carmen de Las Cuevas. Although Granada is one of the birthplaces of flamenco, both of the principal female teachers there were neither Spanish nor gypsy (gypsies are the true parents of flamenco)—an indication of how far-reaching and diverse flamenco had become.
The woman I studied with was called La Presy. At first I assumed she was gitana (gypsy) because of how she looked, but imagine my surprise when she began to speak English in the heaviest Texan accent I had ever heard up close. Presy was Native American and had been living in Spain for decades, dancing and teaching flamenco.
My personal road to becoming a flamenco artist has been more varied and interesting than anything I could have foreseen. I have danced gigs that I never imagined would come my way: from private dancing for two at an intimate dinner, to performing in the opera Carmen for hundreds of people on some of the biggest stages in Canada.
I support myself with a lot of teaching and a lot of hard work to create opportunities in the projects I want to be involved with. That I am able to do this is remarkable to me; a month doesn’t go by when I don’t consider myself very fortunate.
The flamenco world in Canada is small and the country is large so we all operate quite independently, which means my flamenco experience here in Ottawa is fairly isolated. When I am not actively working on a project, my artistic seclusion can become a vacuum that insulates and suffocates. There is only so much time you can spend dancing solo in a garage, after all.
What saves me are the frequent visits I make to Madrid for flamenco classes. Ah yes, the sacrifices! It helps that I love Madrid more than any other city I have visited. Even as it grows rapidly, nothing can challenge how I feel about this loud, smoky, abrupt, and generous metropolis. I love the smell. I love the food. I love the coffee. I love the wine. I love the people and the fact they don’t need to smile and be nice to you the first time you walk into their café or bar. I also love that the Amor de Dios studio just happens to be smack dab in the middle of the city.
Amor de Dios is probably the most recognized school for flamenco in the world. In classes I am surrounded not just by Spaniards but also by dancers from a smorgasbord of countries. At some point, all the greats have either taught or studied there. The school’s legend is firmly established in the lexicon of flamenco.
The process for studying is fairly simple: You go to the posting board, see who is giving classes, go to that class and pay the teacher directly. With experience you learn what to expect from any given teacher as far as level and style are concerned. Some classes are physically grueling; some are more about being able to figure out what exactly you are supposed to be doing with your feet.
Every flamenco dancer has a soniquete—his or her unique way of constructing rhythmic passages. To study with some of these teachers is to enter a world of rhythm completely different to what I hear or do. It’s sort of like learning to speak your own language but with a totally new accent.
Class sizes range from ten or twelve to twenty or thirty. Some students are professional dancers and some are not, and this distinction doesn’t always determine the level of ability. But it is not about being the best or about associating with famous teachers (although I do admit to being star struck on a few occasions).
Every time I go, I inevitably reach a point when I am mentally exhausted from so many hours and I think to myself, “What am I doing here? Why am I doing this? Who do I think I am?” A few days later my fatigue passes, and in one instant I know the answer to all those questions. It is an answer that tingles and makes my hair stand on end.
