Seville, Mariana Schroeder

Sept. 22, 2003

 

More than 50% of all Students at the Flamenco School in Seville are Foreigners – most of them Japanese.

 

Flamenco was created by the gypsies of Andalusia in the south of Spain. It is not the result of random improvisation as many think, nor an inherited talent. Today the art of flamenco is taught and students from all over the world are signing up to learn. Although there are many schools teaching dance, The Flamenco Art School in Seville is the only flamenco conservatory in the world where students come to learn how to sing, dance or play the guitar – the three disciplines that make up the art of flamenco.

 

Johanna Emilsson began to dance when she was 12. She wears her dark hair, parted in the middle and pulled back to a bun on her neck. A fresh flower is tucked behind her ear. Very few people seeing Johanna dance would ever guess she is not from Andalusia, the southern Spanish state that gave birth to flamenco.

 

“I am Swedish,” explains Emilsson. “Maybe it seems strange but my mother also danced flamenco and so I started when I was 12, but I wanted to learn more and to study with Spanish teachers. “

 

She went to Spain in search of a dream and found it in Andalusia. “I am doing what I want to do,” says Emilsson. She was 15 when she first went to Spain. She dyed her naturally blond hair black and changed her name to “Luna.” After private lessons with a Spanish teacher she applied for and won a scholarship at the Flamenco Art School of the Cristina Herren Foundation.

 

Alexandra Hoffer has spent the last four years working for the foundation.  “Students come here for three years. We have students from all over the world. Fifty percent are Spanish and fifty percent are foreigners,” Says  Hoffer. “Spanish students usually sign up for the singing courses, and foreigners study guitar where they have approximately the same chances of succeeding as Spanish students so. For dancing and the singing – especially the singing is much more difficult, because  it is not enough to speak Spanish, you have to get the accent right. Singing is also the most difficult thing to teach because you need to have a good instrument.”

 

Javier Rivera has both the accent and the instrument or vocal qualifications.  He grew up on the outskirts of Seville, the son of poor parents and became interested in Flamenco at a very young age. But  he was unable to afford private lessons. Rivera was awarded a scholarship at the flamenco conservatory. Shortly afterwards he won a competition for young singers organized by the city of Seville. He says when he begins to sing he forgets everything but the song, its meaning and its pain.

 

“ When Andalusians speak of singing, they talk about duende. Duende is a state of being, almost a trance. The song takes possession of you. It comes from some deep place inside of you and when you listen – and you have to know how to listen -- you can hear the pain that is our history. Gypsies created flamenco. It is their art and their songs and they were a marginalized and disinherited people.”

 

Christina Heeren, an American living in Seville, created the foundation and school ten years ago to preserve the art of flamenco. Since then the foundation has provided a flamenco education to hundreds of students. Some of the graduates are already professional singers, dancers or guitarists. The school is open to students at all levels. They can enter as beginners or already as advanced students who are interested in perfecting their technique. Some never get beyond the intermediate stage – remaining there for years. Others quickly move to the advanced stage. Hoffer says it is difficult for foreign students, but many come to Seville in pursuit of their dream of becoming professionals.

 

“When it comes to dancing we have people from all over the world,” says Hoffer. “Most of the foreigners are Japanese. Japan is second to Spain in terms of the popularity of flamenco. It is absolutely amazing how much the Japanese love flamenco.”

 

The Japanese students, returning to their country to perform in tablaos, which are  shows put on for tourists. Hoffer says Tokyo has more tablaos than the whole of Spain. The discipline in which foreign students have the  best chance for success is  guitar. Franklin Inyawaxi is from Columbia. He came to the foundation as a trained classical guitarist and began to study flamenco guitar.

 

“Even though I love classical guitar, I got interested in flamenco because you can express so many different things. Flamenco is powerful. It has a lot of emotion. The technique gives you more resources to express different things so that is why I got interested in this kind of music. At the foundation I have met and worked with students from all over the world. Some can play very well and look Spanish. But it is not necessary. Flamenco is not a blood thing – you can learn it.”

 

Age is not a factor at the school. Some students enter while still in their teens. Others come after finishing a conservatory education in their own countries. Tino van der Sman already had a degree from the conservatory of Rotterdam when he started studying at the foundation. Today he is on his way to becoming a star of the young flamenco world and has already performed in the United states and at the Bienal de Flamenco in Seville.

 

For students like Johanna Emilsson, that is what dreams are made of. The Swedish dancer hopes she too will achieve stardom. “I feel a strong need to dance. I need to dance. When I get to dance it is like a relief. It is like a drug,” says Emilsson. “I like many kind of dances, but I think flamenco is a very complete art form so it is easy to find all of your moods in it. You can use flamenco to express yourself very well. The foundation has been very important to me because they took me seriously although I am not Spanish. I feel they have helped me a lot. It is hard to be Swedish and to dance flamenco here in Seville.”

 

Johanna does not plan to return to her native Sweden. She wants to remain in Spain as Luna, and devote herself to a career as a flamenco dancer. “I will always be Swedish but I am also Spanish. That is what I feel.”

 

© Mariana Schroeder, 2003

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