Photos by Evie Carpenter and Kristin Fankhauser
Feet stomping. Aggressive notes of Spanish guitar. Loud clapping. Bright-colored clothes swirling. Dance moves that seem impossible and a wailing but beautiful song.
These are all typical aspects of Flamenco, Angelina Ramirez’s passion. She has been dancing Flamenco since she was nine years old, and two years ago she started her own Flamenco student company, Flamenco Por La Vida.
Ramirez teaches 18 students, and about three quarters of them have joined Flamenco Por La Vida. She offers all levels of classes, from introductory to advanced, and also classes in Flamenco history.
For almost two years, Ramirez and the student company performed every Wednesday at Gallo Blanco, the restaurant in the Clarendon Hotel. Susan Burgos, the general manager of Gallo Blanco, said the performers from Flamenco Por La Vida were just customers at first.
“We just did this for people to have something to do on a Wednesday night,” Burgos said.
Even on what Burgos called a slow Wednesday, all the lounge seats around the Flamenco stage were full.
In March, Ramirez and Flamenco Por La Vida performed at different public events around town including The Phoenix Theater’s performance of La Traviata, the Avant Garden grand opening at the Desert Botanical Gardens and at the opening of a new art show in downtown Phoenix.
She is performing at weddings and lecture demos, where she teaches about the history of Flamenco and gives a short performance as well as working on the Tucson Flamenco Festival and organizing a theater show for Flamenco Por la Vida.
Her biggest goal for fall is to reach out to the community and start children outreach programs. She said she would like to start an afterschool program for high-school students, and also work with children with special needs.
“That would really be my dream, to tap into the youth,” Ramirez said. “I feel very privileged to be where I am at and to share and to educate. This is my work. I do what I love.”
She said she has never done any other type of dance, but Flamenco was natural for her.
Ramirez started dancing flamenco about 20 years ago. She later went to a conservatory to study Flamenco in what she called “the Mecca for Flamenco in the U.S.” — Albuquerque, New Mexico. She dropped out of college to perform and give lectures around the country.
She then spent time studying in Seville, Spain. She went to one to three Flamenco shows every night, and danced and practiced during the day.
In 2007, upon returning from Spain, Ramirez, a Tucson native, moved to Phoenix to be a part of the Flamenco community here. She started performing at the Hyatt and some other locations with different Flamenco companies.
She said the people she performed with would ask her why she would dance with an angry face, why she would grab the hem of the skirt like she wanted to rip it to shreds.
She said the reason she was so angry on stage was that Flamenco is all about expressing life’s experiences and stories. She said that she was “fighting the American reputation” where audiences “just want to see the girl in the frilly dress.”
Flamenco comes from the Gypsies of southern Spain who were maltreated and discriminated against, and traditionally that shows in the performance.
“Flamenco is really used to tell a story about the way of life of a gypsy,” Ramirez said.
So she decided to break away and start teaching classes in Flamenco. She then began Flamenco Por La Vida for which her students can audition.
A year and a half ago, Carlos Montufar joined Ramirez as co-director of Flamenco Por La Vida. He and Ramirez had studied at the same conservatory in New Mexico. He said he was also looking for a “pure” Flamenco audience.
Montufar said that despite having a different style than Ramirez, they have a foundation in the same practices.
“I love working with Angelina,” Montufar said. “We have the same curriculum; we speak the same language … There’s such a level of trust between us.”
Contact the reporter at hjlurie@asu.edu
