ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, September 20, 1996 TAG: 9609200005
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
Back in the 1700s, the people of Spain were not hip to flamenco, a dance once relegated to gypsies.
"There was a time when flamenco was looked down upon," said Clarita, leader of the California-based Clarita and the Arte Flamenco Dance Theatre. "If you danced flamenco, you were garbage."
Some of that attitude continued into the 1800s, and then the 1900s, even as the dance, which has its deepest roots in India, gained popularity in Spanish villages.
The people swayed to regional music, performed regional folk dances. And if flamenco wasn't the dance of their region, they just didn't do it. "In some areas it is 'Oh, no, we don't do flamenco,'" Clarita said.
But Clarita's mother, who came from such a town, took her Los Angeles-born daughter to see Antonia Rosario, the premier flamenco dancer, just the same. And Clarita, who, like Cher, does not use a last name, fell in love. She was 10 years old.
Until that point, she had been taking ballet lessons, she said. "But I never envisioned myself as a dying swan." So she began studying Spanish dance - flamenco and many of the classical dances, first in America and then in Spain. She also learned the folk dances popular in her mother's home town of Sarinana. "I had to do that or I'd never be talked to again by my family," Clarita said last week, laughing into the telephone.
She'll provide a sampling of Spanish cultural dances on Tuesday when her 11-member troupe appears at Virginia Western Community College's Whitman Auditorium. The visit is part of a short tour of the South - where flatfooting is the regional dance of choice. Before stopping in Roanoke, they'll stop in Kentucky and Tennessee.
"I'm captivated by the Spanish dance form," Clarita said. Flamenco, she added, is still her favorite. "It's a completely improvised art form" - within a structure.
Flamenco is based on a count of 12. The dancer stamps out different rhythms within that count, accenting different beats.
Clarita is backed by a singer, Jose Blanco, and a guitarist, Rafael Aragon. In flamenco, the musicians follow the dancer's lead, instead of the other way around. "She tells them when she'll stop or speed up or slow down by giving a call with her feet," Clarita said. "Everything is done in the feet.
"It's really insane."
The dances are often energetic, and are defined, in part, by life experience.
There are cante jondos, for instance, the heavy, emotional, dramatic numbers. And cante chicos, lighter, happy dances.
Despite its tenuous beginnings there, flamenco is now almost synonymous with southern Spain.
Clarita credits a musical group known as the Gypsy Kings for a recent flamenco resurgence in the United States.
"We owe a lot to them," she said. "I should write them a thank-you note, and tell them 'Thank you! We have work.'"
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: color.by CNB