Flamenco. Ole.

Well, I suppose I will continue to talk about different parts of my description because you all have certainly seen enough of the moody teenage girl for a bit. Who wants to read a blog about me complaining constantly?

(By the way, as far as complaining goes, my mom called me a b**ch today and told me that she hated me and everyone else. I told her that if she hated everyone, they probably felt the same way about her.)

Today I'll talk about flamenco. As you may be able to tell from my profile picture, I love flamenco. Flamenco is a dance form that comes from Spain. It's basically a mix of Spanish classical dance (which involves castanets) and gypsy dance. And it's amazingly awesome. It's native to the region of Andalusia, Spain, and is accompanied by live guitar and a drum like instrument called the cajon.

Other instruments involved are castanets (which are technically Spanish classical, not flamenco) and the shoes the dancers wear, which have nails in the toe and heel so as to make a clicking noise. This noise is achieved by performing on a wooden floor with a scalloped bottom so as to allow the sound to vibrate. There are a couple of different sounds and ways to "stomp" the floor with the shoes- the golpe, using the whole foot, the planta, with just the toe, and the tacon, with just the heel.

An interesting part of flamenco is that the guitarist follows the dancer, not the other way round. The dancer chooses whether to speed up or slow down the music, and when the dance is over. All real flamenco is done solo and entirely improvised, although most (beginning) students will have some set choreographies they know, and might dance these with other people at certain events.

The hair and makeup for flamenco involves huge hoop earrings, lots of stage makeup, hair in a low bun covered with a snood (like a hairnet but prettier), and a large flower, usually a rose. Traditional clothing involves a polka dot dress with a double/triple ruffled skirt, and a sash. More relaxed or modern clothing involves leggings, a red or black practice skirt that is about ankle length and has two/three ruffles, and a sash (or not), as well as something like a tank top or leotard.

As far as the actual dance goes, it mainly consists of footwork and armwork. Traditionally, girls do mostly armwork and guys do mainly footwork, but I really prefer footwork. Armwork is graceful, slow, and painful. To truly do flamenco, you must be passionate about it and make every.... move.... slow.... deliberate..... aching..... painful..... In Spain, arm classes last for a few hours, but I only do arm work for about 20 minutes per class. Footwork is really a lot of fun, but there's not much I can do to explain it without showing you.

FLAMENCO IS NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH FLAMINGOS. Flamenco is dance, flamingos are birds.