June 23, 1999

Outside our window, on the neighbor’s roof, the clean sheets hanging on the clothesline gently flap up and down, billowing like sails, blown by the welcome breeze, dancing continually as the soft air lifts and drops its breath. The breeze cools the heat and it is bearable to exist here today. We are becoming gazpacho experts, tasting gazpacho at nearly every restaurant we try. One day, a day with no breeze, that was all we ate. The next day we added fish in the evening and even that seemed too heavy and my stomach was bloated. But the third day we were hungry. Today we tried eating earlier but we weren’t really hungry and the salty salty food of another new restaurant again bloated my stomach. I tried to sleep this afternoon but only rested and now it is nearly time for class and I am hot and tired. Despite all this, I have nearly finished the Siguiriyas and have managed to learn each new part before my next class.

June 27, 1999

So much has happened that I don’t find time to write about. I finished learning the Siguiriyas Friday and will start the arduous work of polishing, of working on style on Monday. Concha says to get ready to sweat, that now the real work begins and we will both be sweating. It is a little scary, like jumping into cold water, but it is what I want and what I need next. If I can get it, it will be dramatic and my dancing will really change. I practiced Saturday for an hour and a half and today, Sunday, for two hours. I now have the arms I learned Friday that go with the end steps I learned on Thursday. I keep going over the whole choreography so I won’t forget it. I still have to think about what comes next in this ten minute dance and sometimes I still forget for the moment and leave out sections. But sometimes I get the whole thing right. Today Freddie and I ironed out some difficult parts that I wasn’t fitting to the music, that were slightly out of comps. I practiced late as I have had a touch of a stomach flu and didn’t feel up to it. When I started it was quiet. Sergio was outside in the patio watering and no one else was around. After an hour Freddie came down to play for me. As we finished, a few people (customers) had already straggled in and some were up by the stage watching us. I find I can just blank them out now instead of getting nervous. It is a lovely and quiet time to practice. Tomorrow I will still get up early (I have the clock set for nine thirty) and practice before my class, which is now at one. Then I will try to get a second practice in in the evening before the Carboneria fills up. When Paco had suggested that I practice in the evenings too if I wanted I had said that I didn’t want to still be practicing when people showed up but he said that would be fine, that it would be good for them to see me. So I did and I like it. The “door man”, Jose Luis, who watches the front door for Paco, always comes in now and says Ol with big smiles. He introduced me to his wife recently as a “good dancer”. It’s nice to feel the support here at the Carboneria. The people who work here are like a family, and of course some are actual family of Paco’s. Saturday, before I practiced, Paco asked me if I were going to practice that day, because I hadn’t gotten up early to practice as usual that morning. That was because, the night before, we had gone to Utrera for the Potaje Gitano, a six hour Flamenco show with primarily Cante (singing) which happens every year. This was the forty third year. It didn’t start until eleven PM so of course we didn’t get to sleep until six AM. the next morning. I hadn’t even planned to practice that day because my stomach hurt but after Paco’s question I thought about it and decided to do it that evening. I felt much better afterward and I had a good practice both Saturday and Sunday. The people here at the Carboneria keep tabs on my practicing. They are very aware of when I skip a day.

I don’t think I wrote that I have been setting the clock to nine forty five in the morning and getting up, drinking our green drink, and then going downstairs to practice. I usually start about a quarter to eleven or eleven but I keep trying for earlier. Paco has said that it is OK for me to practice that early. At first he said that he couldn’t hear in that room (from his bed) but after I started he said that he could hear me. But then he told me that it didn’t bother him. Don’t worry. He only dislikes hearing strange voices and things like that when he’s sleeping. He is like me, (Freddie says, “like us”) he likes to hear Flamenco while he is sleeping. I asked him again if my early practice time was bothering him and he assured me that it wasn’t. I finish by twelve, when it is time for Tula’s lesson with Concha. Then Freddie and I dash out to the Alta Mira and eat a quick breakfast, usually gazpacho, fresh orange juice and coffee, and then we hustle back to the Carboneria to get ready for my one o’clock class with Concha. She has built her schedule around my class so I will try to add extra practice times in the evenings when she used to teach her group classes. It’s much less hot in the mornings and evenings and everyone has more energy. However, it has been cooler lately. When we went to Utrera for the Potaje Gitano we froze. We had brought light jackets and I had worn thin, long pants, thinking that would be enough, but we were cold and so were most of the audience. We took a taxi there and back, splitting it with Ilan and Gabrielle, the young teen age couple from Santa Cruz who are here to study Flamenco. It made it very easy. The sound system was bad and the show was not great. Freddie had been to an incredible Potaje in eighty five so he was very very disappointed in this one. But I had always wanted to go so I was happy that I finally got to go, even though the Utrera Flamenco hey day seems to be over. It was still fun. They gave us wooden spoons to eat our potaje with which of course we have saved as souvenirs. They traditionally serve free potaje, wine, and bread. Potaje is an Andalucian bean soup that is very Gitano (Gypsy). During the intermission the waiters came around to the long white paper covered tables lined with people sitting in chairs on both sides. The waiters carried the large pots of potaje to each person and served it into the plastic dishes waiting on the table to be filled. Concha’s pregnant niece, Esperanza Fernandez, was one of the featured singers. Her father, Curro Fernandez and Pepa de Benito (also related to Concha) sang in Carmen Ledesma’s group which performed last. Carmen Ledesma was the only dancer. She too is a close friend of Concha’s. We met all of these people at Concha’s return-from-Japan party. Only her sister, Pepa Vargas (Curro’s wife, Esperanza’s mother) did not sing in Utrera. I don’t know why. Concha said the next day that she had already heard that the show wasn’t very good and that many of the artists had said they didn’t perform well. Word goes quickly. Paco had heard too, perhaps from Concha. But I still had fun. I have a tape at home from an old Potaje that is great. “Voy pa’ Utrera,” (I’m going to Utrera) is part of a Flamenco letra (part of a Flamenco song). And the famous sisters, Fernanda and Bernarda the gypsy singers from Utrera, have made me feel a warmth towards Utrera because I love their singing. Utrera has taken on a mythical aspect for me. So I am glad I went there this time.

The day before, Thursday, we had gone with Paco, Luis and Concha to a Flamenco presentation nearby in the Barrio Santa Cruz at the French Flamenco Association. They are bringing many artists to France soon for a big festival and the guests at this event were the who’s who of Sevilla Flamencos. Freddie canceled his lesson with Carlos because both he and Carlos were going. I, having had a one o’clock lesson, had the rest of the day off so I washed my hair after my dance class and then painted my nails for the first time here. Then I put on make up, also for the first time here, and wore my black sleeveless silk dress that I bought for Elun and Donna’s wedding. My hair was down and everyone did a double take when I came down to the patio. It was fun to dress up.

Afterwards we had planned to go with Luis and Paco to look at some guitars that were supposed to be great and cheap. However, towards the end of the presentation Concha asked me if I wanted to go with her to the Macarena Pea (neighborhood Flamenco club on the other side of Sevilla) to hear her sister, Pepa, sing to present her family’s (Familia Fernandez’) new CD. We decided that we would meet everyone later at the guitar shop. So Concha and I took a taxi to the Pea and arrived shortly after Pepa had finished singing. We sat on wooden folding chairs in rows with Concha’s family and her good friend, Aurora Vargas (not related), a very well known Flamenco singer. Concha’s non dancing/singing sister, Carmen, whom I had met at Paco’s granddaughter’s Baptismo party was there. So were both Pepa’s, Curro Fernandez, and some other family members as well. We nibbled caricoles (snails) and had fino (very dry sherry) and then red wine mixed with Casera, a sweet, carbonated drink. Then Curro spoke and played about half of their new CD. I had already heard it because he had given one to Paco at Concha’s party which Freddie and I had later borrowed it from Paco. Afterward hearing the CD at the Pea,, we waited on our hard wooden chairs, Concha and Aurora talking to each other so quickly that I hardly understood anything. There were hopes that more music would happen but it didn’t really get going, at least not when we were there. Some of the people who had been at the earlier function had come to this one too, including Concha’s family, Jill (Pedro Bacan’s American widow) and Lucy del Gastor. I talked with Jill (in English) for a while. She filled me in on what was happening. When we left Concha asked me how I liked hanging around the gypsies and I said that I wished I could understand Spanish better, which was the truth. But it was still fun. We took a taxi to where we thought the guitar store was and then looked at the tiny writing on the card again, with my glasses on, and discovered that we had to walk a few more blocks to the actual store. Concha walked slowly in her high heels. We went down an almost deserted street in what looked like an industrial part of town. We found the address and rang the bell and someone called down. Everyone had been there and left. It was two o’clock in the morning. So Concha and I took another cab back to the Carboneria where we finally joined everyone, including her husband Rafael, who was working behind the bar. Luis had just finished singing and Freddie had videotaped him and Carlos. The guitars they had gone to see earlier hadn’t been good and they hadn’t stayed long. But the street that was so deserted when we came had been filled with people several hours earlier. It was interesting to see the same people perform in Utrera at the Potaje whom I had just been sitting and talking with in an audience the night before.