Ignite a passion for firey Flamenco dance in Seville

I’m on a weekend Flamenco dance course in the Flamenco capital of Spain, Seville. After a day wandering around this fabulous city where you can just feel Flamenco in the air, I’ve found my way to a professional Flamenco dance school just north of the centre of Seville where I’ve signed up for 2 days of dance classes starting Friday night.

I’m excited as I get to learn how to dance as well as the art of Compas – clapping to you and I and on Saturday night, the school takes us all to an authentic Flamenco show with no tourists in sight where after my 2 days of lessons, I’m sure I’ll be itching to join in!

My aim is to get beyond the tourist trail and learn how to Flamenco dance myself. I’ve always been fascinated by this passionate dance and being Brazilian, I like to think I’ve got some of that passion and rhythm needed to dance Flamenco.

Our teacher is fabulous, just what you would expect from a Flamenco professional. She speaks in heavily accented Spanish and with lots of demonstration; she manages to get us to move in the way she wants despite most of us not having the right footwear.

I turn up in a sort of ballet shoe in the absence of any other suitable footwear but quickly ditch these for bare feet as I realise that unless I’m wearing the right shoes with a low sturdy heel and taps then bare feet will help me move more like a dancer than my slippery flats.

We start off with some gentle warm-up exercises, then we start rotating our hands inward and outwards, within the hour we add some footwork, tap our heels and toes (as much as you can in bare feet!), then stamp enthusiastically in a sequence of different rhythms.

For the second half of the lesson we start to put the steps together to form a simple dance routine: the faster the music, the smaller the steps and the more I trip over my own feet. Stamp, slide, stamp, move one foot backwards or was it forwards? Most importantly try to look serious, the infectious giggles from the group threaten to spoil the atmosphere so we all try and keep straight faces and get into the Flamenco zone. But then it gets complicated as we have to put the arms and feet together, everything seems to be getting faster and I quickly realise my Brazilian dance moves are no preparation for these firey Flamenco rhythms.

I had a lot of fun, I met a great group of people and was lucky enough to see the ‘real’ Flamenco rather than the tourist shows you typically end up in when visiting Seville. The music is wonderful and one highlight was having our own Flamenco guitarist accompany our class to make us feel like ‘real’ dancers.

Most students spend anything between a week and a month at the school, the most important thing is to understand is the rhythm but sadly you can’t learn Flamenco in a weekend, it’s an art that takes time to perfect but one that ignites a passion and I for one will be dancing when I get back home.