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Arts by Julie Pithers Just like Riverdance isn’t all that is Ireland, or Doug and Bob McKenzie aren’t all that is Canadian, Hispanic music and dance is much more than Ricky and his can shaking. This weekend you can get a flavour of a few of the world’s 22 Spanish-speaking countries, when Spanish Legacy: Celebrating a Millennium of Traditions brings a little tango from Argentina, a little old school and new school flamenco, and folk dance from Mexico. It’s all meant to bring a little backstory to the Latin craze sweeping music today. "There’s this international booming of Latin music including the Ricky Martin fever," says Carmen Galvez of Calgary’s Hispanic Arts Society. "But, we also want to make the public familiar with the other forms of Spanish music and dance as well as show how Spanish culture evolved in the Americas." There are plenty of performers coming to Calgary to prove that – top tango-ers, Flamenco dancers that can do both new and old style rapid-fire stomping, and Ballet Folklorico Mexica dance through time with the Chilean Ensemble keeping the beat. Galvez says that bringing these diverse performers to Calgary is more than feeding the Latin frenzy. "We feel we are responsible for showing people the traditional side of Latin culture behind the commercial stereotypes," explains Galvez. "Besides, we are very lucky to have these top artists coming to Calgary. It’s very rare that you’ll find such a mixture of artists in one show." There are about 15,000 Spanish speaking people in Calgary. Many came in the 1970s from Chile and in the ’80s many immigrated from Central America, some for regular business reasons and some as political refugees. Keeping all those cultures alive in their new homeland has been a task taken on by the Hispanic Arts Society since 1987. Back then, Oscar Lopez was one of the first performers making a living in Calgary with Spanish music. Galvez, herself a Chilean dancer, has found that the more successful the society is in bringing Hispanic cultures to Calgary, the more she becomes a producer rather than a dancer, but she says that having world-renowned artists from Cuba to Chile to Canada onstage is worth being behind the scenes.

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