Finding Flamenco
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I can be beautiful, sad, rich, poor, elegant, and loud. I can be too much or too little and sometimes just right. When class begins and the teacher puts on an extravagant, slow seguidilla, the singer’s plaintive voice cuts to the bone. We bend forward, letting our arms dangle, our necks lengthen, our heads release toward the floor. So begins our sequence of stretches, warming up our bodies. We enter a sacred space where music and movement silence the mind and awaken the heart. Fluid memories barely out of reach of consciousness spontaneously arise. As we move into our standing poses, arms lifted overhead, I experience a calm vitality. Dance is and has been a way of opening to the moment, to the truth of the experience of the infinite in a finite body. Kinetic form metabolizes daily concerns: worries, doubts, and thoughts themselves vitalize me. Everything becomes fuel for movement as my senses experience a dimension that brings increased awareness. I knock at the door to the universe and, more often than not, am given permission to enter.
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About the Book
In her teens, Stephany Borges saw her first flamenco show at Los Flamencos de la Bodega in North Beach, San Francisco. From the first note of the flamenco guitar and the first throaty cry of the singer, she knew she had found a world of music and dance that thrilled her to the core. She then studied with the legendary Isa Mura and Ernesto Hernandez until her mother put a stop to it because dancers rarely made a decent living. Borges chose another career path teaching English and creative writing.
At around sixty, she retired from teaching at a California university, sold her house in Northern California, and moved to New Mexico. Though much rehearsed and carefully orchestrated, the reality of leaving her job, her community, and her home in the redwoods to live a new life in the high desert was not easy. And, then unexpectedly, she found flamenco. It never occurred to her that her abiding love of dance would be resurrected at this stage in her life.
In Finding Flamenco, she shares the stories of her adventures and passions, telling her tales of loss, travel, friendships, relationships, and so much more.
About the Author
Stephany Borges studied dance with the legendary Isa Mura and Ernesto Hernandez. When she retired from teaching English and creative writing, she moved to New Mexico, expecting to write and continue her academic work on D.H. Lawrence. Instead, and quite unexpectedly, she rediscovered her passion for flamenco. She lives, writes, and dances in Albuquerque, New Mexico.