In 2022, we took giant leaps with our partners, community members, dancers, and artists, to celebrate the art of flamenco and to bring it to audiences here in Georgia. Here are three highlights. 

The Ventanas video series brought Spanish song, dance and life to K-12 students.

We created a video series that invites students into the intimate spaces of flamenco artists in Spain. Artists took us to their kitchens, balconies, and living rooms, to show K-12 students in the state of Georgia, a glimpse of the “real” Spain. From those spaces, the artists gave short lessons in singing and dance. The videos are each about 10 minutes long, and features Atlanta-based flamenco artists as narrators. The series is in Spanish with subtitles also in Spanish. This series, produced with funding by the Georgia Council for the Arts, is available to schools for unlimited viewing, for a small licensing fee.

La Feria ATLANTA brought an all-day extravaganza of flamenco dance and Spanish food to Georgia.

In 2021 we had to present La Feria ATLANTA online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so we were especially excited to present this all-day event in-person at Madrid Spanish Taverna on May 14, 2022. The restaurant in Roswell shared its parking lot with us, where we presented performances, classes, and children’s activities under a giant tent decorated as a caseta at La feria de abril in Seville, Spain. The restaurant offered a menu of its popular Spanish tapas and paella. Flamenco dance students and professionals performed all day long, while flamenco fans could watch or perform themselves. The grand finale of the event was a flagship performance that featured dancer José Moreno.

Photos below by Erik Voss.

The ATLANTA FLAMENCO FESTIVAL returned for two weeks of song and dance in person

Read about the Atlanta Flamenco Festival in the 2022 Year in Review published by ArtsATL >>

Seville dancer Isaac Tovar led a cast in two concerts September 10, 2022 at Emory University in Atlanta. Miami-based dancer Natalia Novela joined Tovar in duets and also performed a solo. Guitarist José Manuel Alconchel and Singer Pepele Méndez, both of Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, accompanied Mr. Tovar and Ms. Novela. As part of their roles as resident artists in the APERTURE Residency, the cast taught classes to local flamenco aficionados and professional artists, who then performed some of the new material they learned on September 20.

Later, Macarena de Jerez, singer and dancer, and guitarist Paco Fernández of Seville, gave a concert at Red Light Café in Midtown Atlanta Sept. 20. Local flamenco aficionados and professional artists joined them and performed works that they had studied during the APERTURE Residency. The guest artists from Spain worked closely with local artists and sound engineers to create the quality of sound that is used at performances in Spain. For those who have sat in a theater in Seville or Jerez or another grand city of Andalucía, that sound brings an almost tangible and certainly magical element to the emotional expression transmitted by artists on stage. It is challenging to reproduce in other settings, so we were pleased to be able to create this for Atlanta audiences.

Photo below by Frederick Choi.

How you can help bring flamenco to more people in Georgia

As we kick off programs in 2023, we ask all of our fans to consider making a tax-deductible contribution to our efforts. Ticket sales and tuition provide only about 30% of the funds needed to produce our arts programming . Here are three ways you can help.

1. Buy a ticket again next year and bring a friend–or bring five friends.
2. Give tickets to friends for a gift if you can’t attend a performance.
3. Make a private financial donation. Your contribution could fund one or part of one of the elements of our work, such as:
   $6,000 pays for one dancer to come from Spain to Atlanta for a week
   $550 covers the cost of studio rental for teaching for a month
   $100 pays for the license for a K-12 school in Georgia to view Ventanas for a school year
4. Become a presenting partner, member of our Board of Directors, or a volunteer, and see flamenco from a new perspective.

We invite you to commit to joining us in 2023. Now is the time to become part of the early stages of our process, when the cheers of “¡Olé!” live only in our imaginations. That cherished word will roar months from now, to reflect the excitement of the audience. Then, people will gather after satisfying work on behalf of artists and a production staff who eagerly prepared to see arts lovers gather to share the emotional outpouring that only flamenco can generate.

Donate on GAGives Day during #GivingTuesday2022 >>