For
the majority of Americans and Canadians, the word Flamenco conjures up
images of a pretty woman whirling around a dance floor to lively, passionate
music that brings your blood to the boiling point, while stirring romantic
feelings. The closest that many of us have ever got to a Flamenco
performance is through watching someone in a movie or perhaps a performance
presented more as a novelty than an art form in a restaurant. If however,
you are traveling up the Pacific Northwest coastline between June 28th
and July 7th, you may want to treat yourself by attending one of
the performances at this year’s Vancouver International Flamenco Festival’s
20th Anniversary Celebration. For more than two decades, the
husband and wife team of Flamenco dancer Rosario Ancer and guitar virtuoso
Victor Kolstee will be hosting the events. This year’s festival will include
performances from their company Flamenco Rosario, local independent artists,
Melanie Meyers and Nanako Aramaki, some nationally recognized Flamenco
performers such as, Claire Marchand from
Winnipeg and Maria Osende of Halifax and some genuine international
icons, including Spain’s Isabel Bayón
and Mexico’s Sabas Santos (Mexico).
Last summer Rosario Ancer and her company presented Mis Hermanas – Thicker Than Water: My Sisters and I, which told the life story of Ancer, her family, her Mexican heritage and the pursuit of her career as a Flamenco performer.
Ancer recalls her decision to leave Mexcio and move to Spain for several years, before finally moving to Canada, “I left Mexico for that reason (Flamenco). Mexico has a Spanish heritage. They were our conquerors. The Spanish are to South America and Mexico, what England is to the United States and Canada. We take a lot of culture from them (the Spanish) however being Mexicans we also have our own folk music. I grew up listening to Spanish dance and Flamenco. I watched Lola Flores in the movies when I was ten years old and the way that he sung and the way that she moved was very wild. She was an icon.” Lola Flores often appeared as a singer and dancer in movies during the 1940’s, ‘50’s and ‘60’s.
Ancer is quick to point out that Flamenco is much more than dancing, it consists of singing, the guitar and dancing. “You have to have the three elements to have Flamenco. It is an expression in these three forms, but mainly we call the (cante) the voice or the soul of Flamenco. What I mean by (cante) is the vocals, the song form. That is how Flamenco started,” says Ancer.
The first live Flamenco performance that genuinely inspired Rosario Ancer took place in the seventies when she attended a performance by Spanish dancer Manuela Vargas and her troupe.
“She (Vargas) had a great singer, excellent musicians and she was an excellent dancer. When I was a child and I saw that it just blew me away. (From that time on) everything that was Spanish I had to do and I had to try,” says Ancer.
She also remembers, " When I saw Manuela Vargas accompanied by singer El Moro the Cante Jondo (deep song) really got into my soul. It was like an arrow straight into my heart and I was wounded by that and haunted forever. The Cante Jondo brought tears to my eyes and gave me goose bumps. (When I heard) the beautiful sound of the guitar and saw that woman come onto the stage, I knew that I had to do that. I knew I had to find out more about it and I had to immerse myself into that world, because it was so powerful. It touched me in a way that I had never been touched before. That is when I decided to move to Spain to pursue my career as a Flamenco dancer. I thought that I would go for six months or a year and then I would be okay, but once I got to Spain, I knew that it was going to take longer. I knew that I would not learn Flamenco in six months or in a year. I found all the different styles and it was overwhelming, so I stayed six years instead of six months. After a couple of years, I got my first contract to perform with a dance company and then I was invited to perform in a Flamenco house in Madrid. That is where I met my husband Victor, who is the Musical Director and principal guitarist of the company. He was in Spain for the same reasons (as I was). He lived here in Vancouver before he moved to Spain. We worked there with other companies in Spain, got married and we had our first child in Spain. Then we decided to come to Vancouver in 1984. We stayed here for a couple of years, moved to Mexico for three years and then we came back in 1989.”
