Flamenco at Our Hotel

Our hotel's restaurant features a Flamenco night on Sundays starting at 8:30. Since that's long after the kids' bedtime, we had to go to the show in shifts. My wife went first. She came back after about half an hour to make sure I could see some of the first set, which may have been the only set. I rushed over to the restaurant. Things were still going strong.

Flamenco dancing (and the music) is quite amazing. The dancers have a lot of dramatic postures and the stompy sort of dancing that gets the audience excited. Even when the guitarist and the lady singer had a duet, the two dancers were still stomping out an electric rhythm. The guy dancer (whom my wife christened The Dread Pirate Roberts) had athletic machismo.

Flamenco dancers on the stage!

Toward the end of the set, one of the ladies came down into the audience and chose the guy at the table next to me. He went up with her.

You can dance with me, but not too close!

Fastest dance ever!

You can see the seriousness on the lady's face and the high energy that made even the audience member blurry.

Then the other lady came into the audience and picked me! I like to think I did well. Luckily, there is no photographic evidence one way or another. I had a good time, which makes it a good in my book. Some moves I could pick up easily, others seemed a bit awkward. At one point I was wondering if she was doing a move only for girls, a little jump forward on both feet. She naturally had a satisfying stomp. When I did it in my sneakers, it was much less impressive. I heard the band and dancers laughing and chatting the in back room after they were done. Were they chatting about us?

My wife was sad to have missed my Flamenco debut. Maybe in a few years the kids will be old enough to stay up and see an early show. Of course, 8:30 is ridiculously early in Spanish culture, where dancing usually doesn't start till much later. This show was definitely for tourists and certainly lots of fun.