Unfortunately flamenco has not experienced a boom like belly dancing has, in my experience. Where I live you could go to a belly dance class or show almost every night of the week. For flamenco, there are two classes run by the same person and no shows at all since Katrina. Also, you might be surprised to know that there are many venues that do not want to host flamenco because they do not want dancers with hard shoes with nails on their stage. Many people just don't get flamenco, especially the cante ("why are they yelling so much?"). Here in New Orleans it's a hard sell, and even if you do get a show, audience numbers fluctuate--you can have month after month of no one showing up and then suddenly one night it's standing room only. Unless you have a sympathetic club owner, having hardly any audience for your show can be a killer.

Not exactly festivals, but there are some Spanish restaurants that will do a night of sevillanas with an open dance. Here in Phoenix, there's a restaurant that does one the last Wednesday of every month.

Hola flamencas. Last year, I drove about 3 hours one way from Wichita, KS to attend summer workshops in Kansas City. This went on for about 8 weekends. I guess I really caught the bug. I take private classes with Magdalena (Flamenco_con_Magdalena) in NYC, and I love her. This summer, I'll do the same thing: Timo Lozano and Vida Peral will be in KC in June and October, respectively, and I'm looking forward to the workshops! There's a workshop in Dallas in the spring and I might go to that one. This March, Carlotta Santana's group will be in KC, and a bunch of us are going.

There's not much calling here in Wichita, and my bellydance teacher is doing her best to keep it alive.

Hi again - I just came back weeks ago from a flamenco festival in Albuquerque; it was an 8-day workshop with performances at night by guest artists from Spain: Antonio Canales, Carmen la Talegona, Rocio Molina, to name a few. This year they started a class called the beginning block; it was a 3 and a half hour class of studying the flamenco structure, the cuadro, of course the dance, some palmas, cante (we learned some tangos letras) and guitar. The emphasis was on the dance with the goal of having an understanding of the cuadro, and integrating the parts of the cuadro.

One of my teachers was Joaquin Encinias - not only is he a master of his craft, but a great teacher as well. He taught us how to improve one's musicality by learning cante, doing palmas and figuring out the phrasing of a particular song. He also taught a tangos choreography.

I also took a choreography class (bulerias) taught by Teo Morca. Now Teo is a living legend in the flamenco community. His approach is understanding flamenco, how to achieve the look, the moves and the feel for the art. Each day we had a guitarist as we danced. Excellent teacher.

My other classes were beginning technique and palmas (taught by Joaquin). Overall, this was a festival worth going to, it was $$ well spent; and I made a lot of new friends. I definitely will be back next year.

I am new to this, but I have found El Duende in other art forms. The performance for entertainment or money only lowers the value of the experlence.