You know it’s time to renew your gym membership, but you just can’t quite work up any enthusiasm? Why not try flamenco? Carolina Berrera is teaching a tango workshop January 26 through February 2, beginners welcome, registration deadline January 8.
A style of singing, guitar playing, and dance that hails from southern Spain, flamenco is famous for its rhythmic stomping of the feet and expressive arm movements. It’s passionate and emotional. Dancers move with a fiery intensity for which the art form is known.
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And they burn calories.
Flamenco is a solid cardio workout; it increases your heart rate and improves your endurance. The long, straight silhouette required in flamenco dancing works core-stability muscles. The dance encourages straight posture with an elongated spine, shoulders held back. Dancers keep their arms above their heads and move them in graceful twists and sweeps, which create long, lean muscles in their arms and shoulders. Calves and hamstrings also receive a workout from the almost constant stamping motions. But rather than bulk your muscles like cross fit, flamenco will instead tone and define them.
The St. Louis Cultural Flamenco Society regularly offers beginning and advanced classes that teach technique, castanets, and choreography. Its artistic director, Marisel Salascruz, founded the society in 1984 to teach Spanish dance and share her beloved Andalusian culture with St. Louisians.
“Flamenco requires discipline. It’s not so easy,” she remarks. “You have to learn so much to become a good dancer.”
Salascruz has worked with students who thought they could learn the danc
e in six months. “It took me seven years to learn,” she says, laughing.
Still, she insists that anyone can learn to flamenco dance. You need only three things: fire, discipline, and commitment. “You have to have the passion of flamenco and be willing to learn the right way to do the arm movements, the hip movements, the turns, and the footwork,” Salascruz says. “You cannot come to one class; you have to keep coming back.”
Just like the gym—but the outfits are way better.
