Artwalk!

The American Dance Institute (where yours truly accompanies dance classes on Monday and Thursday nights) is located in the heart of Seattle's outstandingly hip and as yet still relatively unspoiled Greenwood neighborhood. As testament to this enduring quintessential hipness, every year about this time the masterminds at Greenwood Central orchestrate an art walk. But this is no "have a mind-numbing stroll through my effete rented loft space while sipping chardonnay from a paper cup" kind of art walk, mind you: this is twenty-seven bad-ass city blocks of chianti powered art excursion. I mean, what other neighborhood in Seattle can lay claim to a Space Travel Supply Store, more fair trade, employee owned coffee shops than "starbuckses," and an ample supply of white, dark, and milk chocolate Jesuses on a stick (Jesi? Jesum? I really don't know . . .) ?

And let's not forget the flamenco show (um--that being the point of this blog post, after all). Actually, it was really more of a "demo" of the Thursday night class's "works in progress," but you wouldn't know it from the turnout: not only was all of ADI's available sitting/leaning/milling space full, but there was a veritable throng of wine-fed onlookers spilling/wobbling out onto the sidewalk.

And the show/exposition, I think, came off pretty well, all in all. The pieces weren't perfect (come on--they're not even entirely choreographed yet), but there was certainly enough energy to make up for the lack of polish. (I'm told, for example, that Rubina's jaleo could be heard as far as Maple Leaf.)

But enough of my yammering: no videos this time around, but how about some pictures? (For which thanks Andrew Shinn):














































Looking back over the photos, I feel compelled to note that, yes, the dancers did occasionally put their arms down. This was, however, evidently discouraged. (Which thought, I must further admit, evokes the megalomaniacal joy felt by guitarists between subida and silencio when dancers are suspended in some such state as depicted above, wholly dependent on the initiative of said guitarist to start playing again so she can move. Oh, how those seconds tick by! (Look for a Freudian Post-Marxist Anarcho-Patriarchy reading of this phenomenon in posts to come!))

But in the meantime: go play!

~A