Dancing with Desire: How Flamenco Ignites the Flame Within
Dance your way to a more embodied way of being.
Four years ago, I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was always my back-up plan: if my world fell apart, I would move to Albuquerque and study flamenco dance.
Until I realized:
Wait. You can just go and do the thing that you want to do.
There doesn’t have to be a crisis in play for you to honor your desire.
So I did. I packed up my car and the cats and signed a fourth month lease on a tiny 400-square foot apartment close to the university.
Four years later, I’m still here. They call New Mexico the Land of Entrapment (a play on “Land of Enchantment”). Yeah, I’d say that holds true.
Upon arrival, I started studying flamenco dance at the National Institute of Flamenco with their artist in residence, La Popi, from Madrid, Spain.
La Popi was the teacher to teach me bata de cola, a long and elegant ruffled train skirt worn in flamenco. Not only is it beautiful to look at, it’s a skillset in itself to dance in and interact with on stage.
I didn’t own a bata. I borrowed one from the studio that was several sizes too big. I test drove another bata from a girlfriend in Seattle, which was too short.
It all left me feeling a bit like Goldilocks in the fairy tale, when she tries to find the bed that is just right. One is too big. One is too short. Where is the one that’s just right?!
Finally, I sprung for a bata from Seville, Spain made by Maya and her team at Fabrica Flamenca. (Most of my costumes over the years have come from them, so I was confident it would fit). It fit like it was made for me.
Over 11 weeks, Popi taught us an alegrias choreography with bata de cola and manton (a large shawl with long fringe). That Christmas, we would dance it at La Estrella, a flamenco story of the king’s quest.
Alegrias is a joyous dance and its archetype is queenly, regal, jubilant. Between the bata and the manton, we would be wielding a lot of material as we moved through space. We look like great winged birds.
In class, Popi would say,
“You need to think, ‘I am in the most beautiful woman in Albuquerque’.”
As dancers, on the stage, we don’t speak. The body tells the story. To appear as queens, we first have to believe it ourselves to embody it.
And after countless hours of rehearsal and drilling choreography, costume is the next component. When my hair and makeup is done, when the shapewear holds my posture in place, when I zip up the dress, there is a transformation that occurs.
I am her.
This photo of our gold number from December 2019 is prominently displayed for this year’s show (find me on the far right).
If you could have been a fly on the wall in the theater at UNM, here’s a snippet of what you would have seen:
We are alive. We are turned on. We are in our element. We are queens.
When I see powerful flamenco, I get the impression that the dancer is channeling the divine — becoming an embodiment of universal energy. To experience this type of life force energy is a seduction in and of itself. Like a sailor to his siren, we are transfixed.
The chakras (the Sanskrit word for “wheel”) refer to energy centers that exist in the body. In dance, the second or sacral chakra is vibrant and alive.
Located between the belly button and the pubic bone, the sacral chakra is the source of sensuality, self-expression, emotions and sexuality. It corresponds to the flow of creative energy.
Dance is a powerful way to activate the sacral chakra and to get the energy flowing. You don’t even have to be good at dancing in order to enjoy the full effect.
On her Instagram this week, Mama Gena said how she starts every morning with a ritual: she dances naked for 10 minutes to active her life force energy. (Even on days when she doesn’t feel like it. Especially when she doesn’t feel like it!)
“In order to unlock the legend that lives inside her, a woman’s body needs to move. The only way to blow the lid off your greatness is to practice the action of self-love. Not the thought of self-love. The only way to practice this kind of self-love — the turned on, lit up, legend-creating kind — is to get into that gorgeous body of yours. To feel it, to move it, to inhabit it. Your body will teach you self-love in a way that your intellect cannot.” — Mama Gena
So this is your challenge from your Sex Coach this week: take ten minutes a day for a dance break. Turn on some tunes and let your body take over.
Get a little hot. Get a little breathless. Get a little turned on. And feel the effects of that chemical cocktail flowing through your bloodstream.
See how it changes the way you move through the world.
See how it changes who you are.
If you’d like to dive more into flamenco (who could blame you!), here’s another one:
I’m so thrilled you’re here. Did you enjoy this post? Please like, subscribe, and consider sharing it with someone you who loves to dance. So much love and energy goes into crafting these posts and it would bring me joy for it to reach more like-minded people.
Enjoy an outtake of me rehearsing barefoot at the studio… fumbling a little and not taking myself too seriously! (The song playing in the background is Niia’s Sideline. One to add to your dance playlist!)