Good morning/day/night, whenever you’re reading this. You know, I’m just going to  make this a little easier, hello. Today I’m going to tell you about flamenco dancing, or flamingo dancing, as I first heard it. Flamenco dancing has three parts. Guitar, singing and dancing. Flamenco dancing originated in Spain but has traveled to cultures like Latin American, Cuban, and Jewish traditions. Originally, flamenco dancing, was danced to singing and clapping, called ‘toque de palmas’ in Spanish. Normally, Flamenco dancers have small snappy instruments attached to their hands called castanets. Traditionally, most flamenco dancers get taught by friends, relatives, and neighbours. Some musicians and dancers teacher themselves, but modern dancers get professional training.

The women in flamenco dancing wear very pretty dresses called ‘trajes de flamenco’ the traditional costume for flamenco dancing. The dress is important for one, because it points out culture identity. And two, just a regional costume. The traditional colours of the dress are red, black, and white, but now dresses are any bright colour. Normally their dresses have a polka dot pattern, but sometimes they’re just plain.  The top of the dress can have ruffles, lace and long sleeves.  The skirts touch the ground, and can have and extended ruffled skirt for certain songs.  The female dancers swish and lift their skirts as they dance and twirl.  A large, embroidered shawl can also be part of the performance. The women always have their hair up in a bun and wear high heels at all performances. A female flamenco dancer is called a bailaora.  They can dance solo or with a male partner.

Male flamenco dancers wear form-fitting pants, long sleeved shirt and a jacket.  They look very warm when dancing.  The male dancers have quicker steps because they are not wearing a long skirt.

A large component of flamenco dancing involves facial expressions and elaborate hand/wrist movements.

Yesterday we personally went to see a show, and it was fabulous!:) Not to mention the sounds really holds your attention!!!!! The stage was smaller than I thought it would be, but they had really cool lights. We actually saw the performance at the one and only ‘Flamenco Museo’. The flamenco museum is actually the only flamenco museum in the world!!!  My favorite part was hearing the castanets. They are quite loud though. I thought it was amazing how fast the female performer could snap them. The part I also really liked was how fast the male dancers could tap his heels on the ground. You could barely see his feet moving. The singing and guitar were really amazing too!!!!!

Ciao, Ori