A PRIVATE WORKSHOP WITH TEODORO MORCA

By Tamara Saj - Special Correspondent to Flamenco Buzz

April 26, 2008

You may be generally used to eating rice about 57-109 grains at a time, steamed, perhaps between the ends of two chopsticks. But last week, I moved one figurative grain of rice at a time, raw, with figurative chopsticks, from one figurative bowl to the next, and then back again.

Was I learning martial arts? No. I was learning flamenco.

I am a flamenco dancer who has been performing professionally for about ten years, but I was wildly humbled by the experience of this past week.

Let me rewind. I am proud and grateful to say that Teo Morca has been my mentor in flamenco over the past couple of years. Before I met Teo, I read about him in historical books about theory and history of flamenco. It never occurred to me to contact him, until my previous mentor, La Miguelita told me I needed to move on and find someone new, and she suggested I try contacting him.

So I got up the nerve to reach out to him, and since then it’s grown into what I feel is a professional relationship of beautiful proportion. It’s like having an uncle…with three lifetime’s worth of amazing stories. I have wanted quite fervently to take on and adapt his dance style, and I’ve done what I could to develop it, though what do you do when you’ve only done it for 10 years…and he’s done it for 56?

(Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and gulp down your Pride Milkshake.)

This past week Teo came to Fayetteville, which is where we are currently living, to give me a private workshop. I guess I was a little apologetic about the size of the town, but he made me feel quite at ease about this from the start: “Bellingham,” he said, “Is where I did my most creative work. I don’t like the big cities. And look: Fayetteville is beautiful. And so green.”

It had been about one year since my last intensive workshop with him, and now we were at the stage where I was probably overstepping my bounds a bit. In a last email, I said, “You have got to teach me that incredible escobilla por alegrias con palmas.” He replied, “You don’t know the structure of flamenco…Take me seriously and we can move to the next level.” And my heart sunk down to my bowels. But after crying in spite of myself, I gulped down the last bit of my milkshake and said, “Okay, so the next workshop we will go over structure.”

Whether I knew anything about structure or not at this point was immaterial; I think he wanted me to learn it from him, and I understand why. No one teaches structure like Teo Morca.

And what did we do, for one week? Nothing, nothing but structure. We did the same thing, over and over and over again, for one week. I can’t tell you how many llamadas por desplante I did, how many cierres, how much marcaje. Funny enough, to prepare for the workshop, I overtrained a bit, weight training for definition, and speed training with taconeo, and by the time he arrived I was nursing a knee injury. The irony is, after all that fuss, we did negligible footwork.

And, periodically during the workshop, he would close his eyes, slowly shake his head, and heave a sigh out through his nose.

I am not going to say it was hazing. How can it be hazing, when you pay for it? But Teo said, at the end of the week, “I am satisfied with what you’ve done– you may have thought you didn’t do much, but you got a lot accomplished.” My quads burned, my knees buckled, my toes ached. I said fatalistically, body broken, my voice cracking with a touch of misery, “I will never, ever be the same dancer again,” and he said gently, “No…no, you will not.”

Supplementing the lessons in the studio, Teo talked to me about the art form – the lecture, the Charla. In comparison to our time in the workshop, those times were light and easy, though I was intent on soaking in everything. One of those nights, Teo said, “In every art form, there is an innovator; the innovator is the shepherd, and then there are the sheep who follow.” Softened by a glass of red wine, I replied, “Baaaaah.” And he chuckled. Perhaps this was reassuring to him; after all the pain, I still wanted to move forward. He said in another conversation, “About 90% of flamenco students leave…when they realize it’s work.”

I am not going to lie… after making a modest name for myself among my peers, the thought crossed my mind that perhaps I should just hang it up. But Teo said, “Stop being embarrassed about what you don’t know. Focus your energy on learning it. Not beating yourself for not knowing it. That’s why I’m here.”

Teo Morca is a legend in the world of flamenco. He danced with Jose Greco, Pilar Lopez, Carmen Amaya, Luisa Triana. The gravity of his experience and stature is undeniable. I just feel so lucky that he was willing to let me study with him. I am not a full time dancer. I have a day job that has nothing to do with dance. I am a mom with two kids. But Teo was willing to spend the time with me to help me improve my craft, the biggest passion of my life outside of my family.

Teo is tough but honest, and after 56 years of doing flamenco professionally, as a Great, with the greatest of the Great, there is no one who knows flamenco or can teach flamenco like Teo. Teo has recently been appointed Artistic Director of the Taos Academy of Dance Arts, Taos, New Mexico. For more information on Teo Morca, go to www.morca.com.


Editor's Note: Tamara Saj is the artistic director of the Cape Fear Arte Flamenco. For more information on Tamara, visit www.saytr.com/flamenco.htm.