Entrevista with……Omayra Amaya

FB: Tell us about your most recent projects, according to our site, you are headed on to Santa Barbara ….

OA: Yes, we have a performance in Santa Barbara, for the Flamenco Arts Festival, on September 23, and for that show, we are presenting a show "Siento", and with us we have two singers: Manuel Gago and Curro Cueto. We also have Antonio Rodriguez “El Chupete”, a male dancer, David Rodriguez from Sevilla on percussion and Roberto Castellon on guitar. After, that, we are coming back to New York.

FB: Where can you say that you are, right now, in your career?

OA: Right now I am in the process of opening up a new corporation, a new dance company, a new 501 3(c), we just received the certificate in the mail. The idea is to re-start the company. To that end, I’m going to be attending Long Island University and working on my Master’s Degree, studying New Media Arts & Performance, with the idea of using and incorporating these elements into the theater, into flamenco, which would be something that I believe would enhance the flamenco experience greatly. With new media, we can reach a wider audience, and help the audience experience a more “up close and intense” show. That is why I am in the process of studying this myself. I am also rehearsing for upcoming shows with my dance company in November, in Ohio, and this one is with other artists of the dance world.

FB: In the flamenco dance world?

OA: No, in the dance world (as a whole): the ballet, modern dance, and including world music. We would be doing flamenco. What I am doing also is creating new works, and hopefully to present them. I feel I have changed, we all have changed, we all have grown, and we see things differently now. There is a lot I need to express to people, in regards to many issues, such as in social matters and also trying to bring back the feeling of “being alive”. With the war, and with everything that is going on there is too much sadness, and there is too much debris all over us. Adding to this is what’s happening in Jerusalem, with the problems going on in Iraq. This is affecting all of us, and it’s especially affecting us in the arts. It’s affecting the money we receive for the arts, with the resources for artists to make works in America. I believe that we need to somehow, bring “la ilusión” [translated, the illusion] back to people, the hope, to dream, and art is the best way to make people feel again, to make people think, and reflect. I feel that flamenco being, in my opinion, one the arts that most communicates and expresses sentiment directly, doesn’t matter what culture you are from -- it touches you. I believe that we can do a lot of communicating and healing with flamenco.

FB: Is that the concept that you’re trying to bring, healing through flamenco?

OA: I don’t want it to sound spiritual either, because it’s not a matter of……it’s healing in the sense of allowing people to sit down, and feel alive when they are watching a flamenco show, the expressing of every emotion. When we’re up there, we’re giving every ounce we have and so, my main goal is to make people feel. We’re living in a society, in a world, where we don’t take the time to look, to listen, to feel, to enjoy each other – still trying to touch people.

With more contemporary works, you know that I very much enjoy modern dance, and jazz dance, and I believe in it tremendously because it allows me to move my body in every possible way, and my interpretation of this is to use it in flamenco. To use those disciplines, but make it flamenco. That I’m still researching, and it’s a lot to say, I know….

FB: Yes, it’s a lot to say, but it seems like you’re willing to bare your soul to speak to someone?

OA: For me, in flamenco, I have to live the feeling. The reason I do what I do is that it’s a way of life; I cannot imagine my life without it. I feel very responsible in maintaining a good quality, and teaching people that flamenco is for everybody. It doesn’t matter where you are from, flamenco speaks to you, and it’s also a language that people can use to communicate themselves.

FB: Can you tell me about bringing multi-media into flamenco? Flamenco has moved from tablao to…..?

OA: Flamenco began as a folk dance, and then with companies such as Carmen Amaya, Antonio y Rosario, it became a high art because there would be the incorporation of classical Spanish (dance) and other forms of dance – like ballet and modern. It took flamenco technique from the tablao, the home, to the big stage, the theater. Now, in the last ten or twenty years flamenco has gone down, and movements have gone back to the tablao. Everybody is dancing again like we used to dance in tablao, which is: small (movements), very little use of your muscles, of your torso muscles, of your legs, of your body, of your mind, of your technique. I would like to see flamenco once more move with technique, using it like we used to in the past: incorporating modern dance, classical Spanish, and now, modern dance. You see Belen Maya incorporating modern dance in her choreographies, not for the purpose of dancing to fuse, but to take the artist and dancer to the next level technically. I believe that it is the study of other forms of dance that is extremely important. It has been in the last few years that it has been lost. Students are starting to concentrate on flamenco, pure and only, without realizing that in order to take it to the professional level, you need to incorporate other forms of dance, to build up strength in your body.

FB: Then dancing in a tablao is not what we’ve been lead to believe?

OA: The goal for dancers is the tablao, it’s a good goal, but it’s not the last goal. It’s just a medium, a way, a place that you step on before you get to the next level. Tablao -- I believe it’s very important for dancers to perform there. It gives them a stage experience that is important. But, that is not the end. We should aim for theatre. That you make it to tablao doesn’t mean you are a dancer. Now, to be able to get to the next step which is theater, the incorporation of other techniques of dance within your flamenco technique will help you get to the next level. With only flamenco, it’s very difficult. It will not be the same. You won’t know how to use your body when you’re on a big stage, and the movements there are bigger and require a lot more strength and technique than to do a tablao show. You do not use your body as much because you can hardly move in a tablao. You are dancing on a (small) square. It’s important for dancers in this country to be made aware that tablao is a step on the way, and will prepare you for the next step which is the theatre. Dancers should definitely study other forms of dance: ballet, modern, jazz, anything which involves your torso, your muscles, how your body works, which connects you to your body and allows you to understand what muscles are needed to create specific movements. These forms of dance all incorporate discipline.

FB: Now that you’re looking to base your dance company in New York, what can you say to the guitarists, to the singers which at this point, there really aren’t enough…..

OA: Well, that is the thing that I face not only in New York, but in this country. The solution I have found is just to bring my artists from Spain. There are some great singers here, but there are very few and they are very busy.

Note from FB: Omayra’s teaching schedule in New York has changed, please go to her website www.omayraamaya.com to see workshop schedule, day and time changes. See you there!!