Covid Blog Day 68 – Life of a Flamenco Dancer

FLAMENCO & COVID. It has been a rough week because the Shadbolt Centre cancelled my big residency for my project “Rojo y Sombra” and I will not be getting to do my September residency and 4 shows in the black box theatre. I know it is nobody’s fault but I cannot help but be disappointed and mourn my show. This show has been work in progress for years and has had many twists and turns along the way. I have already cancelled so much! In April, my “Solo Flamenco” show was cancelled and I look forward so much because it is my one chance to forge ahead with my cuadro flamenco repertoire. I try to do it yearly and really try to do palos that are difficult to dance that need a specialized music knowledge. This year I was supposed to dance Tarantos, Jaleos Extremeños, Tango de Titi and Canastera (all little known) with my pals Jafelin and Davide who are usually with me, but we needed our guitarist Josue Tacoronte to make it really FlamenCubana, as we were going to add some Cuban influence to all the music. I consider this a huge loss because without this challenge, without knowing I am pushing ahead with my flamenco dance, I feel like I am going backwards. I don’t need a 15th version of an Alegrías or Solea por Bulerías. I NEED to do Tarantos. Now more than ever.

CUADRO. In May, Mozaico Flamenco’s big loss was the cancellation of our big “Cuadro” show. It is one of the Mozaico projects that I love and is dear to my heart. I am everybody’s choreographer, musical director, conductor via palmas and show producer. Everybody thinks flamenco dance is just dance, but nothing can be further from the truth. I usually coach 10-12 soloists each year and my work entails everything from choreographing from scratch a unique dance for my student that suits their personality or just coaching them on solos they have created but polishing them by recommendations working with the musicians. I feel that where I really add value is my ability as a musician, arranging the music with our great cuadro musicians (singer, guitarist, percussion, palmas). People think that flamenco is just another dance but nothing could be further from the truth. It is a chemical interplay between the dancer, the guitarist, singer and percussionist/palms and truly, the musicians make or break the dance. The Cuadro project integrates and works all my skills as a teacher, choreographer and musician and I just love this show.

It was a big year because we upped the ante with Vicente Griego, a cantaor from New Mexico. We have known Vicente for 8 years now and I have great chemistry with him with onstage. People say Vicente is my polar opposite. We are like the Yin and Yang. I’m a Sagittarius with Virgo Moon. He’s a Virgo with Sagittarius Moon. He’s big, I’m small. We are big trouble. He scares me in performance. I have had students tell me that out of all my duets in La Tarara production 2017, my Tangarrojira with VG was the best. I’m like WHATTT? I spent literally hours with Emilio Ochando with a study grant and 20+ hours, great bailarin of our day on this thing called Tarara with Bata de Cola, omg, see YouTube: https://youtu.be/kYx9-HTmu4c. Then I danced with Ivan Vargas, great bailaor from Granada and our Farruca is #1 on YouTube today: https://youtu.be/pziQ1VcL740. At the time of this writing we have 142,824 views and climbing but I cannot monetize my YouTube because only 624 subscribers. Please everybody subscribe to Kasandra Flamenco so I can get to 1,000 subscribers and monetize this thing. But despite all rehearsals with the dancers, my friends say my best duet was with Vicente because our energy is just too big, it was a comedic number blending his humour and mine.

I’m so sad we missed the VG this year. I so love when he sings for my students, they are shocked at the power and energy behind this artist. Looking forward to 2021.

My tour with Co. Erasga, boohoo! In May, due to the pandemic, I lost the tour with Co. Erasga “Passages and Rhythm”, one of the projects that has taught me so much about the extraordinary contemporary dance process. I learned patience, layering, essences, qualities and textures working my flamenco with another genre. It was a tremendous journey with Alvin Tolentino over the last 2 years creating an innovative percussive piece that blends flamenco and contemporary dance, with many flamenco bulerias rhythms but also 5 compas and silences. The bulerias part with my cajon player with Davide was the easy part for me, delving into bulerias, abandolao and spb grooves. The more difficult but more compelling parts of the piece were the silences, hearing the fluttering of the fan, eerie metal textures and opium dream segments. This truly taught me the usage of silence. When juxtaposed with flamenco’s fiery nature, silence is enormously effective! Watching this show emerge was so interesting, a growth experience. To watch Alvin blend contemporary dance with flamenco, bharatnatyam and voice, and to watch the chemical reactions between the dancers and to see the duets evolve over many rehearsals was incredible. I was sad not to do this tour with Alvin, Sujit and Gabriel. I really wanted to dance. It would have been my first tour with contemporary company.

How is Zoom Class going? Flamenco dancing is both my job and passion. When covid hit Vancouver, we just stopped classes on March 17. I took spring break off but by April started teaching online classes using my iphone10. Quickly finding out this technology was not enough, by week 2, I set up the studio with much better equipment. Thus far, we have not gone back.

I feel that my natural instinct to nurture a community is equally as great as my desire to dance flamenco, and perhaps my greater gift to the art form. Being able to teach with the zoom conferencing app, I am grateful to keep a regular schedule, keep in touch with my community and continue doing what I do. The technology does have some frustrations, but overall, is serving its purposes which is allowing continued access and contact to my students. This week is actually my 7th week teaching online. Honestly, I have a nice dance studio downstairs decked out with mirrors on 2 walls, pro sound system and now all the equipment for online classes via zoom including high definition camera on tripod, plasma tv, apple computer and big ass microphone with ambient sound cancellation which is critical for sound. If I wanted to, I can drag out photography lights, backdrop and scrims that will soften my look but, not necessary. This is enough tech. I am grateful to just have this tech kicking around the house due to my husband having expensive hobbies.

The zoom set up allows for students to view exactly as they would in a live class…my back, my mirror image in front. With the new microphone I can play mp3 music while dancing, which allows the full experience of music with the dance. The limitation of the technology is really based on WiFi bandwith, so if the neighbourhood is all using wifi, it increases the time lag. I cannot execute choreography or footwork with the same speed as before. Everything has to slow, slow down. If my students have no bandwidth in their neighbourhood, I see their image as lagging. It is very weird to see a group of people all dancing at different times and speeds.

You have to have a good sense of humour. I was laughing my head off the other day as I was singing a Bulerias Patada for Bulerias class and watching 10 students try to dance with my cante and click track. OMG! It is not Real Time. Flamenco is based on compas, music and precision. Unfortunately, the technology is not there for us to experience it Exactly, at all times. So. This is the limitation of online. I have to blank out my students (my superpower is blocking everybody haha), sing in compás with solo compas mp3s and ignore all on my screen that are out of compas. I must chuckle because being “out of compas” is totally unacceptable in flamenco and one of my jobs is being Compas Police! However, with a good sense of humour and gratitude, I would say online classes are going very well and represents another manner to reach the flamenco community. We now have students signing on from Vancouver Island, interior BC as far as Prince George and even a student from Toronto. I guess geography is not an issue anymore and more people can just sign up. Technique 60 minutes works very well. Bulerias and Tangos por Fiesta classes have choreography and we put on YouTube study video so people can learn properly at home.

ROJO Y SOMBRA. Back to my opening sentence, it has been a rough week because the Shadbolt Centre cancelled my big project “Rojo y Sombra” and I will not be getting to do my September residency and 4 shows in the black box theatre. This has been my biggest loss of the year. I have been working with an avant-garde prop, red aerial silk fabric and over 2 years worth of guest artist help (thanks Cristina Hall, Emilio Ochando and Josue Tacoronte), several artistic residencies (thanks Roundhouse, Dance Centre, Shadbolt) and a lot of sweating in the Dance Centre Birmingham Studio (thanks, Andreana), this project is now officially on hold for possibly a year. I know it is nobody’s fault but I really sad and disappointed and mourn my show!

Photo by: Elvira Yebes

People see me as a flamenco dancer that has taken cuadro flamenco and flamenco productions to the limit here in Canada, but this was my Flamencontemporanea show where I was to have showcased my version of contemporary flamenco dance. I have had so many ups and downs with this project, gone through 4 male dancers only for it to be held up by a world pandemic. I have found the musical director of my dreams in Josue Tacoronte who is a guitarist originally from Cuba now living in Mexico. He is a guitarist that truly knows no bounds when it comes to genres, music, geography, time or space. We met Feb 2019 and here is where I met the guitarist who can play classical, flamenco and contemporary (and I do mean contemporary…listen to his CD Brouwer II whoa). A thoughtful, creative, collaborative and prolific artist, he created the music for a couple of my solos including “Confusion” and “Entrapment” where I portray a woman who finds herself going down the spiral with a narcissistic abuse relationship. It mixes and blends flamenco with the dissonance of contemporary music. Honestly, it would have been a milestone for me to do this show and now I can’t. At the age of 48, it is major to have to wait 1.5 years to be able to do a show where I am literally swinging through the air and rolling on the floor. Yes, I am 48. People look at me and maybe think I’m 10 years less but…&*(^ I guess I have to keep working out until I can see this vision through. Where’s Bikram’s yoga when you need them? Oh wait, we are in a pandemic with a crazy virus…I guess hot yoga in small room with millions will be a bad idea.

Here is my YouTube on my dance, “Confusion” where I dance with one shoe off mid-way through the dance. This was recorded in residency at the Shadbolt in September 2019 with Josue Tacoronte on guitar. Since I will not be able to do this show until 2021, maybe releasing the video now will be somewhat cathartic. In this video, we might have two people in the audience and two techs in the booth. For me, nothing beats live performance and it is hard to dance for an empty room. I feel for recording and film artists because this work is so dry. For me, my dance gets exponentially better the bigger the audience and higher the stakes. This is the best job possible under the circumstances with no external energy in a black box at the end of a 5 hour day. But…looking at this choreography now, I guess it does convey the sentiments I have to express about my cancelled shows. Regressing to my inner child.

Where to go from here. At the time of this writing, it does not seem like I will have any big shows for the remainder of the year. I have had my OMG moment (a few actually) feeling very sorry for myself but I have to come to terms with the fact that we are a world living in a pandemic times. There is NO normal and I hate that people are calling this the New Normal. This is not normal at all! We must first take care of ourselves, our hearts, our feelings. We must mourn what was lost, recognize where we are now and find a way to move forward. The Canadian government was clear from the start we have an 18 month journey until there is a vaccine solution for covid19. Either we go out there with reckless abandon and just live life out, or we choose to physical and social distance with prudence and caution for the duration of 16 more months. I feel that Canada and BC in particular as a province have chosen to stay inside. This week we are seeing the essential services going back to work. Phase 2 also means that restaurants, gyms and fitness centres may also go back. I am standing by to see how that works, full on knowing that there is always a second, larger pandemic wave coming.

About The Author

Kasandra “La China”
Flamenco Dancer and Instructor, Director, Producer, Choreographer

Kasandra is one of Canada’s leading flamenco artists well-known for her unrelenting drive to push the artistic envelope. A tirelessly ambitious artistic director, soloist and prima bailaora, Kasandra is always hungry for new sources of inspiration and knowledge, constantly pushing her musical and choreographic mastery to its limits. She has been identified as “Vancouver’s flamenco star who has embodied flamenco with her dynamic, precise style” by Flamenco-World magazine. Read More