You have perhaps heard the rumors.

The subterranean mumblings, hoarse whispers from dark corners.

A flash impression! Now here–now gone.

And all the while, the wheels keep turning–could it be? Dare you believe?

Yes, dear reader–dare: it’s true! All true! After the Snowpocalypse of 2009 . . . La Peña Flamenca de Seattle . . . has returned! For another winter show!!

And–actually–it was a lot of fun! But, unfortunately, I don’t have any pics or videos yet. Sorry.

Instead of a long ramble, however, about this that and the other thing (as is, we all know, my bent), I thought instead I might share with you some heretofore unpublished (well, unpublished here at least) pics and videos of Peña goings-on this year.

The Peña, of course, is the amateur performance group made up of Rubina and Marcos Carmona’s advanced students. Capricious meteorological conditions permitting, we generally put on two major shows per year (i.e. one in the winter and one in the summer). I suspect that pics of the most recent winter show may turn up in a month or two, but in the meantime, here’s a “potpourri” of stuff from Winterfest and from the 2009 summer show.

First off, a video (since it has been soooo long since I’ve posted one of these). This is Markus, Steve and I with an arrangement of Paco de Lucia’s canonical rumba flamenca, “Rio Ancho”:

This is from a DV Cam in the audience, so the audio levels are a bit low, but you get the idea. This is actually the first “solo” number that the three of us have noodled through, so all in all I think it came off well enough. I had mentioned in a previous post that right up until the opening bars I was unsure as to what degree my peripheral nervous system might abandon me, but cold fingers aside, nervousness turned out not to be a major issue.

Of course, there’s a difference between “getting through” a piece and really inflecting it musically–which for my part I’d like to do a bit better–but it is in doing (and performing) that these things improve, no? In any case, it was fun to be “on the spot” for this one (instead of hiding behind the dancers–which is what we usually get to do).

And speaking of dancers, here are some Seattle Winterfest pics (taken by Jal):

And there you have the update–photo, video, and otherwise. And I plan to make good on that promise not to ramble . . . by stopping here.

Think of it as my leaving you a bit of extra time in which, instead of reading my ramblings, you can go play!

~A

So I’m coming up on three years playing with La Peña Flamenca de Seattle this year and I can’t help but notice that there have been certain regular markers of the passage of time along the way. One of these is the Seattle Center Winterfest show–which just happens to have taken place last weekend. In looking back over my archives, it appears I didn’t write a blog post about it last year (probably because of my PhD exams), but I did write up a blurb about it for the year before (2007).

Here’s a bit of what was on my mind post-show two years ago:

I’m not particularly afraid about getting up in front of people, but my nervous system gets weirded out by public appearances. Tragically, this is what connects my brain to my hands. For this show, at least, “the claw” (my fellow guitar player Markus’s moniker for an oh-so worthless set of panic-frozen fingers) didn’t keep me from getting the job done–most of my job was chording, really. In any case it’s a condition I wouldn’t at all mind getting over.

Being an irremediable nerd at heart, I take no small pleasure in documenting the sundry vagaries of performance, anxiety, and the link between the two. As such, I was curious about how things would turn out in a similar performance situation two years later. The reason is this: The question I really wanted an answer to in 2007 was, “is this the kind of thing that gets better, or am I stuck with anarchic limb syndrome forever?”

Well, I can’t speak for every performance occasion–I would imagine bigger or more complicated shows to be a different ball game–but as for the Winterfest show (for which we played for a couple hundred people, all the same) the news is good: I didn’t feel even so much as an elevated pulse, let alone full on nervous system rebellion.

Granted, my hands were cold through nearly the entire 45 minute set, but this is something I can live with. It is irritating, yes, but not debilitating. Having played a number of full length shows with my little flamenco cuadro, I’ve actually come to expect that my hands won’t warm up for at least three or four songs. Again, a drag, but not fatal.

The subtext here is that in between the 2007 Winterfest show and last weekend, I’ve played “out” a lot more than once or twice a year. There have been better and worse shows, of course, but so far I’ve yet to see any catastrophic relapse into neurological mayhem for the kind of performance situations I commonly see.

Of course, this is just me–results may vary, see your doctor, etc.–but for anyone out there who wonders why his or her hands won’t cooperate when they’re needed the most, and, more importantly, if it ever gets better, here’s a vote for “yes, it does get better.”

And here’s the moral of this story: Get out! Play!

(Which is what I’m going to do right now)

~A

So. For those of you who have fallen behind on your Zamani Flamenco Internet Stalking, here’s the latest: last night we played a pre-game show for the sold-out Seattle Sounders FC vs FC Barcelona game at Qwest field. This had the potential to be either very cool (i.e. free swag, widespread adulation, after-game hot tub parties with bikini-clad fangirls) or outright mayhem (i.e. Barcelonés soccer hooligans coming at us with broken bottles for playing a too-uptempo fandangos).

As it turns out, it was cool. Not very cool, but pretty cool all the same. Swag there was–we all got Sounders/FCB match scarves–and, though I didn’t catch any bikinis, there were plenty of enthusiastic fans. “Plenty” being in the neighborhood of 67,000. The organizers also threw in tickets to the game and VIP parking passes (I knew this last bit was important, but I only realized how important it was once we got there).

Most importantly, though, the gig was a lot of fun. We were set up under the “Bud Light” tent (more on this later) and pretty much had free reign to do what we wanted. We played in the “pavilion” at the entrance to the stadium (after the ticket gates), so once people were in the park they were free to linger, find their seats, or go get some garlic fries (more on these later, too).

This meant that our audience was by and large transient (erm, in the sense of “on the move”–not “homeless”). At any given time, though, there were anywhere between 25 to 50 people gathered around. And of course, some people just walked by. This was a good thing, though: it meant that the people who made up our audience were actually interested enough to spend a few minutes and check out what we were up to.

Which few minutes, by the way, almost invariably involved a picture. We weren’t allowed to shoot video, but there were lots of fans doing it. And lots of still shots. Our own fearless friend Aaron Miller (a.k.a. Mr. Marta) took some shots from my camera (which follow); the perspicacious Tom Wallace was also there with his camera (i.e. a real camera)–I’ll hopefully post some of those soon.

All this talk of photos, however, brings me to the “Bud Light” tent. Behold:

Now, I won’t badmouth the Bud Light folks–they’re the reason we got paid–but I fear to think what will happen when all those good sports fans download these pics from their cameras a fortnight hence. This is the dialogue I imagine:

“What are these pics from?”
“The Sounders Barcelona match.”
“Oh yeah–that flamenco group. What were they called?”
“I dunno–Bud Light Flamenco?”

I’m pretty sure that’s the way it will go down. I know these things. Perhaps we might discuss a name change . . . erm . . . ew–or maybe not. Here, here are some more pics to chase that nasty image from your mind:

Oddly enough, a good number of people actually wanted pictures with us after our show, too ( two guys with a full size Spanish flag were particularly hilarious). Despite this widespread digital voyeurism, however, there were at least a few people that seemed to appreciate the art of what we were doing. During our alegria, for instance, Dani spotted an older fellow who was actually singing along with the cante. As in, he knew all the words. We had some other folks doing palmas too (though not always all that well) and lots of cheering (some jaleo-esque, some pure sports fan–but whatever, it was all good).

In any case, it all made for a fun time. We wrapped our set up about 15 minutes before the start of the match, stowed our gear, and made our way to our seats. If you’re curious, here’s what a full stadium looks like from where we were sitting:

Close to the field we were not, but given what we paid for the tickets (i.e. nothing) there were no complaints from us. The trek to our seats, however, brings me to the topic of garlic fries. We smelled them as we were making our way up the creepily bovine ramp to the upper reaches. After we were all situated, Dani, Marta, Mr. Marta and I headed down to investigate this savory temptation. All I have to say is that they were not so much “garlic fries” as “garlic with fries.” I’m no stranger to the clove, but these things were not for the weak spirited.

The fries, however, I mention only for this: Zanbaka noted (on our trek up) that we always seem to play at places that serve garlic fries: first the Northside Grill, then Kristos Eastlake, and now Qwest Field. Another name change possibility, perhaps? It would be odd, yes, but I gotta say I like the ring of it better than the other one.

By way of wrapping things up, if you don’t know already, the Sounders got completely trounced by Barcelona. This was not unexpected–Barcelona is said to be the best team in the world at the moment. It was a noble effort, though, and, massacre that it was, I was glad to be there to see it.

Now enough marathon-blog-post-reading: go play!

~A

Have I ever mentioned how “blue” Kristos Eastlake is? I’m sure I have. But you may not have believed me. Well, here be the proof: more blue than you can shake a stick at (whatever that means). These are some shots from our second show (in July), taken by the low-light loving Tom Wallace (click on the pics for a larger view):

And speaking of Kristos Eastlake, if you haven’t been yet to see a show (and you happen to live in the area, I guess) you really should drop by. We’ll be back there on the 16th of August with two brand new songs, more props, and all the blue you could ever want (and more!).

Until then: play, I say, play!

~A