PORT ANGELES — As befitting the Gypsy art form of flamenco, a dancer from Spain who lives in North Carolina is coming to teach in Port Angeles.
Alicia Vila, the sister of Port Angeles resident Laura Ahlburg, will preside over three flamenco classes this coming week at Fitness West, 114 S. Lincoln St.
Participants need not have one speck of previous experience to enjoy these sessions, the first of which starts at 4:30 p.m. today, Ahlburg said.
“This is for everybody,” she added.
Vila will teach another class at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, and finally at 4:30 p.m. next Friday, Aug. 20.
The classes are independent, so one doesn’t have to attend all three, Ahlburg said.
The sessions last about an hour and cost $15 each.
Women can choose to wear pants or a skirt, but “wearing a belly dancing skirt or a big wrap or any kind of scarf around your hips would be helpful,” Ahlburg noted, “as you will playfully move that to create movement.”
Dance shoes of any kind are best, she said, though street or dress shoes work for both men and women.
Choose “a flexible shoe,” Ahlburg said, “that would hold tight to the foot and with a low heel.”
Most important for this, however, is an interest in the rhythm and spirit of the dance, which has Spanish, Sephardic and Moorish influences as well as Gypsy, or Romani, origins.
Vila and Ahlburg are from Barcelona, and while Ahlburg moved to the far Pacific Northwest with her husband, Kaj, Vila found herway to Chapel Hill, N.C.
There, she is part of Flamenco Carolina, a troupe that performs at festivals and private parties throughout the state.
Vila began studying the art of flamenco a decade ago under Carlota Santana Flamenco Vivo, one of the premier flamenco and Spanish dance companies in the United States.
She teaches flamenco in North Carolina schools and at her studio in Chapel Hill, and gives workshops around the country.
For more information about her set of classes in Port Angeles, phone 360-452-1118.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
