On November 16, the International Flamenco Day is commemorated throughout the world. UNESCO declared this dance to be Spanish Intangible Heritage of Humanity on November 16, 2010, and since then, this day has been celebrated in a number of ways. Flamenco singing, guitar playing and dancing are the three main pillars of  the artform.  Yet, its history has a complex and often debated past.   To explore this entangled past, C-DaRE’s artist and researcher Rosa Cisneros with the support of US, Romani technowizard and stepdancer, Russell Brown,  and flamenco scholar and dancer Meira Goldberg, have organised a three-day  event on Nov 14th-16th to honour Flamenco.  

Over the three days, Roma and non-Roma authors will expand on their latest chapter in Celebrating Flamenco’s Tangled Roots The Body Questions, Edited by K. Meira Goldberg and Antoni Pizà. The book is a collection of essays that poses a series of questions revolving around nonsense, cacophony, queerness, race, and the dancing body. The book asks how can flamenco, as a diasporic complex of performance and communities of practice frictionally and critically bound to the complexities of Spanish history, illuminate theories of race and identity in performance? 

C-DaRE’s Cisneros will host the conversations - authors will expand on their chapters.  One of the days will be dedicated to a virtual performance by Russell Brown and followed by  a post-performance Q&A session. 

 

More on the book below:
How can we posit, and argue for, genealogical relationships within and between genres across the vast expanses of the African—and Roma—diaspora? Neither are the essays presented here limited to flamenco, nor, consequently, are the responses to these questions reduced to this topic. What all the contributions here do share is the wish to come together, across disciplines and subject areas, within the academy and without, in the whirling, raucous, and messy spaces where the body is free—to celebrate its questioning, as well as the depths of the wisdom and knowledge it holds and sometimes reveals.

About the Editors:

Meira Goldberg is a flamenco performer, choreographer, teacher, and scholar. She teaches at Fashion Institute of Technology, and is Scholar-in-Residence at the Foundation for Iberian Music at the CUNY Graduate Center. She has instigated and collaborated on multiple books, exhibits, and international conferences. Her book Sonidos Negros: On the Blackness of Flamenco (2019) won the Barnard Hewitt Award for outstanding research in theatre history from the American Society for Theatre Research.

Antoni Pizà has taught Music History at Hofstra University, the City College, John Jay College of the City University of New York, and the Conservatory of Music and Dance in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. He is currently the Director of the Foundation for Iberian Music at the Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation of the Graduate Center, USA. He has authored and co-edited numerous books in English, Spanish and Catalan. 

BIOS: 

Russell Patrick Brown is a harper, Romani technowizard and stepdancer. As a proud craftsman he fuses the embodied practices, music, technology and "readings" traditional to his Romani, Irish-American and Black/LatinX/Trans/Queer/Vogue/Ballroom House families. He holds his BA in Music from Baldwin-Wallace University and his MA from New York University, and is completing his doctorate in practice-based research.

 

Step dancer and harper Russell Patrick Brown (BA, Baldwin-Wallace University; MA, New York University) comes from a Bashaldé Romani and Irish-American family and is a proud tech tradesperson. He continues his family's musical and dance traditions, and those of his chosen queer family in Vogue/Ballroom House and circus/nightlife.

 

Clara Chinoy (B.A. Anthropology Harvard; MFA Dance NYU; Masters Scenic Arts Universidad Rey Juan Carlos; DEA Universidad de Sevilla) is a flamenco dancer and scholar, based in Madrid since 1990, whose dancing has been described in the Village Voice as “exquisite y varied... able to create an aura of beauty and mystery.” She has performed with flamenco legends such as Miguel Funi, Concha Vargas, Pepe Torres and her husband David Serva. She has taught at Smith, Mount Holyoke and Hunter Colleges, Wesleyan University, Universidad Carlos III, and Universidad de Sevilla. Her doctorate in Anthropology regarding Gitanos in Lebrija (in process) is based on research funded by the Fulbright Foundation. 

Belén Maya (born 1966) is a Spanish flamenco dancer, choreographer and educator. The daughter of Mario Maya and Carmen Mora, both dancers, she was born in New York City while her parents were on tour performing. Maya began dancing while still young and studied classical, Hindu and contemporary dance in Italy, Germany and England. She also studied at the Amor de Dios school in Madrid with teachers including Paco Fernández, Goyo Montero, Carmen Cortés, Paco Romero, and Rosa Naranjo. She joined the Spanish National Ballet, later joining her father's company. She then formed her own company, going on tour in Japan; she next joined the Andalusian Dance Company. In 1997, she formed a company with singer Mayte Martín which performed at major festivals in 2002 and 2003. She continued to perform, also studying with Juan Carlos Lérida and David Montero. In 2014, her show Los Invitados received the Critic's Award at the Festival de Jerez. In 2015, she was chosen as best dancer at the Premios Flamenco Hoy by the Crítica Nacional de Flamenco. Maya recently stopped performing and now lectures on contemporary flamenco and gender issues, particularly in the United States.

Miguel Ángel Vargas, Co-Director of the Theater & Drama Section of RomArchive.eu, is a Spanish artist with distinctive Andalusian-Gitano roots stemming from Lebrija and Jerez. He earned his degree in Art History from the University of Seville, where he is currently pursuing his PhD in Contemporary History. He also studied Theatre Direction at the Seville Institute of Theatre in 1999. He participated in many shows as an actor, musician, director, producer and technician. He defines himself as a poet because he tries to embody the authentic meaning from which the original Greek (ποιητής) was derived: the one who creates, the one who begets and gives birth. His passion resides in the world of flamenco and theatre. His heartfelt mission is to tell the stories of the Gitano fieldworkers from Lebrija and to follow the commitment of the Teatro Lebrijano, an independent political theatre company established in his hometown in the 1970s.

K. Meira Goldberg is a flamenco performer, choreographer, teacher, and scholar. In 1980s Madrid, she performed nightly in flamenco tablaos alongside artists such as Antonio Canales, Arturo Pavón, El Indio Gitano, and Diego Carrasco. In the US, she was first dancer with Carlota Santana, Fred Darsow, and Pasión y Arte. Since going grey, she has instigated and collaborated on a number of books, exhibits, and international conferences. Her monograph, Sonidos Negros: On the Blackness of Flamenco (Oxford University Press, 2019, in translation by Kiko Mora, Libargo, 2022), won the Barnard Hewitt Award for best 2019 book in theatre history or cognate disciplines, as well as Honorable Mention for the Sally Banes Publication Award for best exploration of the intersections between theatre and dance/movement, both from the American Society for Theatre Research.

 

Antoni Pizà has taught Music History at Hofstra University, the City College, John Jay College of the City University of New York (all in the USA), and the Conservatory of Music and Dance in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. He is currently the Director of the Foundation for Iberian Music at the Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation of the Graduate Center, USA. He has authored and co-edited numerous books in English, Spanish, and Catalan.