Tomb

Long flowing skirts and shawls, guitar rhythms and audible footwork in heeled shoes. This is what I envision when I hear the word flamenco — a dance and music steeped in rich cultural traditions.

Prior to taking my first beginner’s workshop, I had no idea what to wear. I had heeled character shoes from back when I was in a show choir, trendy bamboo-threaded exercise pants, a sweatshirt and a ponytail. The little ensemble I’ve managed to create for myself neither looks sensual nor mysterious — two words I would ascribe to the costumes I have seen on dancers of this art form — but the message was clear: I’m ready for a good workout.

Calgary’s Rosanna Terracciano is a flamenco dance artist. A dancer, choreographer, teacher and producer who studied in Barcelona to hone both her talents and her understanding of this cultural dance and musical form.

By contrast, my experience with flamenco thus far has been that I know I like to watch it. If you break our experiences down into a score, it would be dancer: 1, dance critic: 0.

After arriving late (dare I mention that this writer is also directionally challenged), I slip on my character shoes and jumped in with the class. We begin working on hearing and feeling different flamenco rhythms and making our feet perform appropriate responses to them. “Let the ball of your foot spread out,” says Terracciano. “It’s like your toes are like fingers.”

The first lesson is how to let gravity bring your foot down, so you don’t stomp down too hard and injure yourself. This particular move is called gólpe. The whole surface of your foot strikes the floor, which results in a fantastic banging noise. Another move is called talón — your whole foot lifts off the floor before you strike the edge of your heel back onto it. Then there’s planta, where the ball of the foot strikes the floor behind it. Now you’d think that stomping, especially with gravity doing all the work, is just about as simple as it gets. It sounds great, and feels good, especially when you’re a directionally challenged person and late for your dance class.

The stomping does sound pretty cool with the right shoes on. The greatest challenge, of course, is to feel the music and then put it all together in a sequence (did I mention this was a beginner’s workshop?). In dance, oftentimes a sequence on one side is harder to do than on the other, and for me that’s on my left side — which I usually try just as the teacher is checking on my movement. Terracciano stops me, and we go through it again. Sadly, my wicked moves only happen in front of the mirror by myself.

One flamenco sequence involves the heel and then a toe-toe combination before we get back to gólpe, and then change to the other side. I’m so excited about my toe movements that I conveniently forget about my heels. Another involves a single toe after the heel. The most difficult part is not in remembering the order, but in performing this order with the music. Mistakes abound when you think about the dance too much, or forget where you are because you are absorbed in the music (and in your own flamenco fantasy with shawls and long flowing dresses, holding a mysterious gaze and a lump in your throat the size of a farm cat).

Was I not supposed to be some flowing, stamping, whirling dance goddess after this? We do whirl in class, close to the end of the workshop. The unique turns that should give the dancer enough momentum to go across the dance floor have yet another beautiful name I cannot remember. What is important to remember is to “spot” before one twirls — to use a focal point on the wall so when you stop spinning the world stops spinning as well. Again, my fantasy takes over, and the “spot” takes a backseat until I face my own dizziness and nausea. And my favourite move that comes with that stamping noise — gólpe — results in a board falling from the wall in the dance studio. Now that’s working with gravity.