For about three months now, I’ve been going for Flamenco classes and have been enjoying every moment. It’s such a beautiful form of art – the passion, the grace and the sensuality. I can’t believe that I’ve discovered this love at such a late stage in life, but better later than never, right?
Coincidentally this month, Parco della Musica has organised the Flamenco Festival and I’ve managed to catch 3 of the 4 acts.
The first one was Nova Galega de Danza which I got due to a mix up – mistakenly thinking that the tickets that I bought online was for that evening, last Friday, but it turned out to be for Monday instead. I was stunned, but not wanting to waste the trip, I another pair of tickets anyway and had a look.
“Son” was an interesting interpretation of the Spanish dance with a fusion of Galician and Contemporary dance. Because it was a last minute thing, I didn’t managed to do any research and when it started, for the first 15 minutes or so, I was confused because it appeared to be completely modern dance … I didn’t see any Flamenco dancing at all. But at length, the high energy appeared and it was fascinating to watch as the men poised and did their footwork.
It wasn’t what I expected, but I enjoyed myself in the end.
On Monday, we watched a musical group, lead by Alfonso Aroca – who instead of playing the guitar, uses the piano for his rendition of the Flamenco. So there was the pianist, a guitarist, two percussionists, a singer and a dancer. It was unique. In the end, the ensemble sounded more like jazz – even the flamenco dancer, I feel did his own interpretation of a flamenco dance with a jazz feel.
Here is a segment of what I watched.
Yesterday, we managed to catch the final act with Manuel Linan, which in my opinion was the magnum opus of the entire festival. Which explained why it was completely sold out by the time we arrived at the auditorium and we were lucky to get our seats because of some last minute cancellations.
Manuel Linan does traditional flamenco but the act that we watched yesterday had a twist as the title of the act was “Reversible”. Which explains why he wore a bata de cola and a shawl and danced the female roles while the female player did vice versa.
The entire performance was a feast for the eyes and I was enthralled from the beginning to the end. It wasn’t hard to understand why it was a full house last evening. It was completely mesmerising and the entire ensemble was perfect. I loved the music, I loved the dance, I loved the singing.
I don’t believe that Manuel Linan wanted to be a female while dancing, the way he moves, even in the skirt and the shawl was still very masculine. But his intention was probably to show that even men (and women) can do each other’s roles even in something as traditional as Flamenco.
I had an amazing time these past days and I feel very cultured. Flamenco is probably going to drain me out of my funds, nevertheless, I feel very rich inside. :p
There is a reality TV game show in Italy called 
Being Singaporean, I enjoy watching this show because of the familiar elements and also of the cultural shock that the contestants face with challenges in communication as well as navigating in places which are strange to them. It was interesting for me to see the techniques that the contestants use, some begged, some bartered, some flirted … suffice to say, you’d have to have very thick skin to survive in this competition. 
Last week, the contestants were in Malaysia – Penang, Cameron Highlands, Kuala Lumpur and Larkin. I had a lot of fun with Cart, with us excitedly trying to spot out the places that we’ve already been to like the 
(Eva is one of the funniest contestant there, openly gawking at how good looking the men were) Something interesting to note while the contestants were on the Kuala Lumpur monorail is the prohibition signs. ‘No eating’, ‘No Smoking’, ‘No Littering’ was the standard but there was also a ‘No Kissing’ sign. Asians are quite reserved naturally, so I was quite surprised to see the sign so outright. 
I thought the challenge that they did while in Larkin was a little off – according to the host, the contestants has to eat and finish the different ‘Typical Malaysian food’ before heading off to the next stop. 
Chicken feet was something common I guess, and cow lung, even boiled frogs but as far as I know, Bull Testicle isn’t commonly found in food chains in Malaysia. 
(And according to the host, is very hard) What I admire about the contestants is their tenacity in pushing on to the next challenge and it was always gratifying to see so many kind hearted people willing to host them in their houses for the night. 
So when they reached Singapore, I thought for sure that they would have a hard time. Singapore, being a metropolitan city with a fast paced life, I didn’t think that there would be many who were kind. And their first challenge there was to find a place to shower and change into their fancy outfits. 
To my surprise, while most hesitated for a while, practically everyone was willing to share their homes to the contestants when asked. There wasn’t that much airtime in Singapore though, as they basically went to Raffles Hotels and drink the Singapore Sling as a challenge and then had to rush off to to Indonesia after that. Some might think that Singapore is too small to have many challenges, but I think there are a lot more ideas that we can come out with. 
Nevertheless, if you’re interested you could watch the show in full from the 
