Flamenco EXPLOSION

My ATS Tribal ladies and myself popped along to a local event called Fulbourn Day of Dance a couple of weeks ago, to watch the dancers go. There were two local bellydance groups (we are like a plague - we're everywhere) some kickass teens doing irish dancing, some very stoic scottish dancers, morris dancers and a 45 minute flamenco set with live flamenco guitars. !

Mouth gapes, tounge hits the floor. Wow.

One of my Tribal ladies is an ex flamenco student, so after seeing the dancers at it and thinking "holy frijimole I need to learn this" she introduced me to her teachers who invited us to one of a series of monthly Flamenco workshops held with a dude called Felipe de Algeciras who pops over from Spain once a month to tour our fine English cities teaching Flamenco.

I was totally up for that. 

I attended a beginner and a technique class. I was the only person there who had never done flamenco before, so I was the one Felipe wanted answers from when he asked stuff. Let me tell you, Flamenco 12-beats-to-a-bar compass is bloody confusing! I had my best Suhaila counting face on. But oh, it was incredible. Don't ask me exactly what I learned as I couldn't pick out particular names with Felipe's super Spanish accent and my absent knowledge of spanish, but it was gorgeous, it was strong, it was bad ass and it was stampy. I managed to keep up for both classes (thanks to my well trained choreography sponge brain) and I was invited to go along to Mari-Pia's classes, a truly lovely lady who was the flamenco dancer I could not keep my eyes off at the Day of Dance. 

I was gushing about how wonderful the workshops were all night to poor Guy, who was grumpy that he'd been waiting 20 minutes in the car for me because classes had run late.

I've decided so far that Flamenco is like proud-horses/hungry tarantula dancing. I think Felipe looked a lot like an expensive pony when he was doing his moves. In a good way.