ON ATTITUDE; or, VIVA MARIA!

last december i set myself a mission to get invited to as many company or organization holiday parties as i could. my success was pitifully meager (in the end, i suppose, the mission was an oblique success), but i did manage to garner an invitation to the party of one portland architecture firm which was held at the event space of a restaurant downtown. the catering was satisfactory, and the bar was open; but the most exciting part of that part of the evening was my having been allowed to attend as a couple with monique, whose affections were being sought by a junior employee of the firm. ultimately, though, i was happy to make an early exit, especially after the president or founder or some whomever cornered me in the hallway to the toilet and tried to introduce his very young daughter to "the best dressed man at the party." (i went to that party with my girlfriend, and goddammit i was going to leave it alone!)

in what at the time i self-satisfyingly mused to be a funny internal pr move to promote the company's hipness to its own employees (or maybe just to keep the attention of their younger guests), dj beyonda (of portland soul night fame) had been booked as the party's entertainment. after the first half of her set, the dj, a friend of friends, and i were chatting about another mutual acquaintance, designer john blasioli, and about how i'd hoped to have him make me a pair of pants for looking good at flamenco. casey (djs are people too) was immediately excited, and that was the first time that i remember anyone outside my dance circle comment on the undeniable sexiness of a male flamenco dancer. i didn't disagree.

as it turned out (though i wasn't surprised -- this is portland after all), casey was also friends with a woman from my dance studio, and that woman had invited her to an event that night that casey was very obviously upset at not having been able to attend. i was also aware of the event as it was a regular thing featuring one of the guitarists who works with solo flamenco arts academy where i take classes. but fortunately for me, i had no obligation to the present situation, and it was still early enough for me to make it across the river in time for the second half of the flamenco set. and besides, elliot was now wooing monique much harder under the effects of the complimentary booze. if the main attraction at the party where i was presently was wishing to be somewhere that i could in fact be, it seemed almost deliberately flippant not to choose the second option. proud that everyone at the architecture party had now switched to the champagne cocktails i'd been ordering and enlivened by the few i'd had myself, i walked my black velvet ass across the burnside bridge to where the action was.

mark ferguson's saturday night guitar performances used to happen at the maiden, a spanish themed restaurant and bar formerly at se 7th and morrison, before it was sold last month. that particular evening, the solo flamenco crowd was getting together to welcome someone -- i can't remember whom -- back to portland from spain or somewhere, but probably from spain. all i really remember is a mood: a raucous welcome from across the front window as i walked past toward the entrance -- and complete rapture on the other side of the door where i met a room full of friends drunk on the guitar and the cante. wine too, probably; it is, after all, flamenco. for my part, i did my best just to keep a decent rhythm with my hands. the palmas are harder than you'd think. not that any of it should seem easy.

it's difficult also to convey the spirit of flamenco without sharing it. and i say so less out of fear that i haven't the ability to give a description as that my still nascent abilities as a flamenco might keep me from writing beyond a sentimental and rarified "occidentalism" (if you will). people talk about flamenco as a journey. people talk about duende, a frustratingly contextual term that describes expressivity and authenticity and "soul" (again, if you will). the one book i've read on flamenco, a guitarist's memoir, seemed to sum it up in smoking black cigarettes and snorting cocaine off the dashboards of stolen cars with gypsies. flamenco, as with most art, is difficult to describe because of all of the easy and attractive clichés available to describe it.

sadly, the maiden is gone, and we've yet to find a replacement venue for informal solo flamenco gatherings outside of class. a small setback, but one we'd quickly like to overcome. not that morale at the studio is ever low. frustration during one class or another, sure. desperation, however, is something that might be brought to flamenco as fuel for its expression, but it's not the result. what's more, maria bermudez was at the studio this week teaching dance workshops, and a flamenca could hardly be more inspiring.

i'm not up on my solo flamenco lore -- there are sure to be ghosts in that past to which i'm happy to wait to be introduced, but i have gathered that maria is a grande dame of that matrilinear family tree, and her visits are duly and piously anticipated. posters of her past performances decorate the back wall of the studio, and her steps and style have permeated every level of class.

i was not one of the students shouting and hugging maria before the first of monday's workshops. in fact, and to the contrary, i was terrified even to have enrolled. last year's workshops had been so beyond my ability that after the first day of class i danced in constant dread of being singled out for remedial instruction. it didn't help at all (at all) that i was the only man at the workshop, which presumed maria's singling me out to run through the differences in how she was leading the ladies and the less florid (though still pretty florid) braceos reserved for male dancers.

this year, although i felt much better prepared in my technique, maria's commanding presence still had me looking for a spot at the back corner of the studio. the other students and i were there to train on bulerías, a fast twelve beat rhythm that is often the first flamenco palo taught to new students and the last one mastered. it's a go to dance for parties and informal performances and is highly improvisational and heavy on the contratempos, especially in jerez de la frontera, the andalucian city where flamenco is supposed by some to have originated and where maria has lived for many years.

"alright chicas," maria ended our warm up, "...y chicos," and met my eyes in the mirror. i recalled having the same thing happen the previous year (and she would continue to announce not having forgotten me multiple times throughout the workshop), but instead of last year's absolute mortification, i felt encouraged -- maybe even challenged -- but also touched at possibly having been remembered. i thought it more likely that my sense of encouragement was a result of my technical progress, but there's really something about maria.

maria is a flamenca. and despite the tautological seemingness of that statement, it's really all that needs to be said. she's a compelling artist and an endearing personality for sure, but my failure to really embrace her during her last visit to portland had little if nothing to do with any matter of engagement. rather, it was rooted in my very un-flamenco wariness toward really giving myself over to what maria was teaching.

when people talk about flamenco they talk about compás. the word is used generally in spanish music theory to refer to a time signature, but in flamenco denotes a complete rhythmic cycle. (for example, the bulería's compás is in twelve, but it isn't unimaginable that it be scored in successions of one measure in 6/8 followed by two in 3/4.) compás is fundamental to the communication between flamenco musicians and dancers, and determines the onset and resolution of the different sections of a flamenco dance. ultimately, though, it's an understanding and a reflection of feeling through experience. (to toss another cliché on the pile:) being "in compás" is a similar quality to "having rhythm," not just being able to count one.

during the second day of the bulerías workshop, maria stopped class to demonstrate how we could recombine the remates and recoges and desplantes from the sequence we'd worked on to construct a different dance, to mix it up for a jeurga maybe. she could. we tried. the important thing, she said, was to stay in compás. "the compás is king. rey!" the point of course being that, particularly with the bulerías, the steps themselves were subject to a larger groove, and that if you could manage to keep yourself in it you'd be fine, so nothing to be afraid of, right? "you can do nothing, as long as it's in compás." of course there were limits, too, to that (daunting?) artistic freedom. maria stopped class again to work with me on a different exit than the women were learning: "you're a man. you have to do footwork. you don't have a choice. and, you know, es mi gusto." so i smiled and stumbled through the footwork.

i'm still not confident on all of the steps maria taught us during this recent bulerías workshop. but the lesson seems to have been to learn the confidence and not necessarily the steps -- and not in any cheesy self-help, inspirational message kind of way. flamenco is about owning it: knowing that you look damn fine in those pants and that the stage is yours once you've taken it. no one has anything better to do than to watch you strut. so strut. (or don't, maybe. but keep it in compás.) after we'd nearly master a phrase, maria would turn away from the mirror toward the class. "alright chicas...y chicos [smile in my direction], this time let's do it a tempo [nervous smiles exchanged between students] and with a little bit more actitud. si? con fuego." maria would then dance a phrase "straight" before repeating the same phrase per her meaning. needless to say, maria's straight interpretations were much more thrilling than the fuego i managed to put into my own dance, but i was content with missing some things to act the badass.

by day three, summer had made what by now might be its final return to the northwest for this year, and the temperature at solo flamenco was pushing ninety. we drilled longer and faster than either of the two days before. twenty dancers sweating bravado to the cacophony of a flamenco drill set is something special. maria's feelings on that last day of workshops were bittersweet, not because of the inevitable goodbyes but because after two grey days the sun had come to portland just in time for her to leave. she might have had some luck with the weather if she was on her way to seattle, but i couldn't gather whether it was there she said she was headed next or to l.a. the gaggle around maria that formed between the bulerías workshop and the next one was the same gaggle that had greeted her on monday.

i didn't stay to chat, but not for any want of excitement or inspiration. unfortunately, my legs were finished after the bike ride home (i took the long way and counted the compás in my head), but it was too late to practice and not bother the upstairs neighbors then anyways. not to worry, though. i could practice tomorrow and borrow anything i couldn't reenact on my own from another student at class on saturday. as maria imparted to the class while trying to teach us the timing on one of the remates: "siempre es penultima." it's never your last chance. there will be another time. hopefully that also bodes well for this year's holiday party season as well.