FLAMENO

From the late fifties I have been in love with Flamenco, having been a dancer most of my life it was an affair of the heart and mind. However, i was terrified of the foot work, knowing it would by my undoing if I attempted it and failed. So, I just loved it and it brought me to tears more often than not in all points of the world where I was magically present when it was .

In 2004 when I came to San Miguel de Allende I was told of a teacher and a dancer that was so incredible that I could not pass on the chance to study with him. So I thru my self in to a very fast moving river that I am still trying to swim into or out of. His name was Antonio (with various last names) For me he was the very essence of what I thought Flamenco is and was and always will be. From the heart, improvisational and always coming from a point of view that was very personal and private.

We became friends, I think, you can never be sure with Gitanos. It seemed genuine because i have never been good at looking into peoples eyes for very long without feeling invaded and/or embarrassed. With Antonio it was sometimes for half an hour and the stories that were told from one to another, were from another time and another place.

I must admit I was entranced, sometimes obsessed and totally mystified. As were my friends who thought I was out of my mind and close to the ever present abyss.

It was and still is hard to present my point of view without censure. What most did not under stand was that I loved him as one does the sunset or the sunrise. It is there. it is amazing and takes you places you can not imagine. But it does not mean a dance with oblivion. It just is and one must honor the moment and the experience.

It is easy to imagine where all that passion could go, but first one must know that he was 34 and I was 69 and for what it is worth, he had a lady and at that time a baby on the way and there was no way I was going into that Arena of betrayal, transgression and madness. and if truth be told, risk the humiliation of sunrise on a body no longer young or desirable in the harsh light of reality. So............friends we were and hopefully remain and I will always be grateful for the dream and the truth of what I experienced in a world that I had always wanted to have in my heart and my life. OLE.......................