We’d met a couple of the dancers earlier in the week. Madam Principal had organized two evenings of workshops. I signed up for Level 1, which felt more like Level 100, at the rate Juan Fernandez was going. He was a fabulous teacher, but he went at the pace of what flamenco dance schools in Spain apparently go. Which is the speed of light.

Unfortunately I couldn’t stay to watch the other two levels on the first evening, having to run off to tango lessons. Which sucked, I would have loved to have seen what Soledad Barrio taught the higher levels. Her performance made up for missing the first evening. I did manage to catch the second evening, but the teacher this time was El Torombo. The only way I could describe him at the class is: nuts.

Seriously. He played a snippet of flamenco music, mostly cante (singing) and then he stops, and his 5-minute ramble went something like this to my ear (and brain):

ElTorombo: Spanish spanish spanish spanish Bob Marley spanish spanish spanish Michael Jackson.

MyBrain: What. The. Fuck.

Cue him playing an MJ tune. I had to hide my face at that moment, though I am sure Madame Principal must have thrown me a dirty look at some point because I could not hide my shaking shoulders. Thankfully I did not start howling with laughter. He was a strange fellow, you had to see his antics. I understood what he was trying to explain at some point, but really, did it need to involve metaphors of trains and borrowing a handbag to illustrate god knows what?

Gina and Ryn (my seniors) had warned he was even more flamboyant on stage. At one of the shows, he took off his shirt. I prayed to the gods I would not be witness to this, hoping that the improvisation so embedded in flamenco will keep that from being a repeat performance. His style is a lot less controlled than that of Barrio’s or Fernandez’s. It was a lot more fun, though. That’s not to say that Fernandez wasn’t as good, I loved his farruca, the strength in that piece was pretty amazing. And he’s just a really lovely dancer to watch, with a really friendly smile. Between Juan Fernandez and Joaquin Cortez, I pick Fernandez. Sorry Joaquin, you’re like the Ronaldo of flamenco, therefore, wtf.

So Gina and Ryn figured out the Spanish phrase for “Nice ass!” for when Juan Fernandez next came onstage, much to my horror. Look, he was a lovely teacher, very friendly, etc. but the urge to grab a pair of scissors to snip the mullet off? Unstoppable if I didn’t have any common sense. And then, karma is laughing somewhere and then he does this booty-swaying thing at the finale and my eyes bugged out, followed by an “OY VEY.” However, I would still not tap that. Come on. Ew.

(I was standing in the front row at the workshops, and I totally did not get it then.)

Soledad Barrio had my jaw on the floor the whole time. For one thing, none of her performances involved a bata de cola. Yes, it’s very impressive to dance with a skirt that has a long train, but it just gets kind of old if it’s used all the time. Gala Flamenca drove me bonkers when every single female dancer, including the great Belen Maya, danced wearing a bata de cola. Barrio kept her costumes simple, preferring to let the footwork do all the talking. Boy, did it talk. The speed of some of her footwork could put the Bionic Woman to shame.

After the show, Gina and Ryn wanted to find the stage door. I managed to persuade them to come get a drink at the bar first, not wanting to use my Stage Door Locating Skillz of We Will Rock You Origin superpower. Of course I doubt this particular show would attract many screaming groupies. Also, El Torombo scared the bejesus out of me, Barrio was just plain intimidating on account of being an Awesome Flamenco Dancer, and Fernandez, well, I did not have a pair of scissors, but I would have totally checked out his booty at that close a range and it would not have been very discreet.

So the entire week of flamenco overload is over. I’m partly glad, because I’ve had the flu, and now I can sleeeeeeeeep.