PUBLISHED APRIL 2006

This month's articles  
New tapas | Free tickets | Mrs. Flamenco Shoe | Cyber sale |

Discover hidden gems at Fronteras

Try various tapas selections served by newly opened tapas restaurant, Little Alley.

You are about to discover the gems of Atlanta's flamenco community. Over 80 students will showcase their talent and hard work at the annual flamenco student expo, Fronteras, on May 6. On the night of the show, you'll also discover another kind of hidden gem, a newly opened tapas restaurant called Little Alley. Little Alley will offer tapas plates and platters* for purchase from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.

Little Alley Restaurant and Bar opened about six months ago and is gaining fame around the neighborhood of Roswell. It attracts an international crowd and offers an eclectic menu, with a touch of Mediterranean, French and Moroccan flavors.

You'll have a chance to try some of the delicious choices at a discounted price at Fronteras. Make a night of it and enjoy this exciting event!

*For ordering platters, please call Little Alley prior to Fronteras at 770.992.9198.

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Free admission to Fronteras

Volunteers get free tickets to the annual flamenco expo.

Much like flamenco itself, Fronteras, the annual flamenco student expo, is about community. It happens only with hours of hard work by teachers, performers and a skinny staff of volunteers. Eveyone who participates is rewarded in a special way that only the beholder can explain.

Everyone except for the volunteers that is.

In addition to the sincere pleasure of helping make big moments on stage for their friends and loved ones, each volunteer gets a free ticket to Fronteras. Its a tangible "thank you" to the men and women who help pull off the show. Without volunteers to tackle tasks such as collecting tickets at the door or pinning hair flowers backstage, Fronteras would not be the show that it is.

Right now, Fronteras needs a few more volunteers. If you'd like to help make this year's show a success, contact jaleolé at jaleole@jaleole.com for information about available volunteer positions, including usher, backstage runners and security. It's worth the price of admission and much more!

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Mrs. Flamenco Shoe goes to Washington

A hand-painted flamenco shoe connects student and teacher across the miles.

If inspiration can be a circle, then Atlanta flamenco student Rebecca Money Johnson and her former dance teacher Ulrika Frank have found it through the very tools that they use to create their art. Frank's shoes gave rise to Johnson's dance. That, in turn led Johnson, a professional fine artist, to capture one of her best works on what may be the perfect canvas for a flamenco painting: a flamenco shoe.

Johnson's idea to paint a flamenco shoe came to her about six years ago. She explained, "I quit flamenco, frustrated because I couldn't do it. I said, 'If the shoe doesn't fit, just paint it!'" She returned to flamenco, studying with Frank and Martha SidAhmed. She found success and now has a different outlook on the art and her shoe project.

Johnson completed the first of 12 shoes in 2005. Entitled "Longing for White Camellias," it's based on the poem La Guitarra by Garcia Lorca, and contains imagery of a camellia, a flamenco guitar and Frank, who taught and performed flamenco dance in Atlanta for five years. The shoe is entirely hand painted.

"The first was La Guitarra because it reflects my own spirituality, wanting something unseen," says Johnson. At the time she created the shoe, Johnson was dreaming of having a baby. She is expecting this May.

When painting the shoe, Johnson was also dreaming of entering her work in a 2005 art show, but was turned down. "It was for the best. I think it's meant to be for something else," says Johnson. "If (the shoe) had gotten into the show, then I couldn't have shown it at Fronteras (2005). It was where it was supposed to be (at Fronteras)."

Johnson's shoe has since been shown at another flamenco performance. When Ulrika Frank presented Dentro in Washington, D.C., last month, Johnson's shoe was highlighted as a masterful work of art and an inspiration for Frank's latest flamenco creation.

"When I saw the photos (of the shoe), I said, 'Its really me inside this shoe,'" said Frank. "Then I started thinking in Spanish, 'Inside is dentro, what is in me?'"

Frank's thoughts turned to the 2004 death of her father following his six-year struggle with Alzheimer's Disease, and to her grandmother's death a few years earlier. Frank had been close to both relatives and struggled deeply with the loss of them.

"I saw myself trapped in the shoe," says Frank, who compared the sensation to being trapped in the long process of coping with her father's illness and death and her grandmother's death.

"I had to get out," said Frank.

And so she did through music and movement at the sold out Dentro, which featured live musicians and members of her new flamenco dance company, Mirada Flamenca. Frank made the show very personal opening with music from her native Sweden before presenting a more traditional flamenco show.

"It's my heritage, what's inside me," said Frank of the combination. Usually, Frank fills a flamenco shoe. But this time, Johnson's painted shoe directed Frank to look at the things that fill her.

With that, Frank requested the shoe take the stage with the cast of Dentro. Frank spotlighted it upstage for the entire performance. "It was the first thing the audience saw when they walked in," said Frank.

"It felt good that the shoe was a participant in the show. It was kind of like one of the dancers," said Johnson.

LA GUITARRA   Empieza el llanto de la guitarra. Se rompen las copas de la madrugada. Empieza el llanto de la guitarra. Es inútil callarla. Es imposible callarla Llora monótona como llora el agua, como llora el viento sobre la nevada. Es imposible callarla. Llora por cosas lejanas. Arena del Sur caliente que pide camelias blancas. Llora flecha sin blanco, la tarde sin mañana, y el primer pájaro muerto sobre la rama. ¡Oh guitarra! Corazón malherido por cinco espadas.   -García Lorca

Frank added, she had to explain to the audience that the shoe was indeed hand painted and not a digital reproduction of photographs. This delighted Johnson, but it comes as no surprise, since Johnson paints murals and often works in the "trompe l'oeil" style, manipulating paint to make images look three-dimensional.

And thus these ladies bring inspiration and fulfillment to one another, across miles and across art forms. Both Frank and Johnson find new ways of expressing flamenco. Johnson triumphs in her painting skills. Frank journeys through personal growth. Flamenco shoes are filled - with feet and with paint - and they fill up a soul - with music, healing and movement. Let's wait to see what Johnson's 11 remaining shoes will do.

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Seek your treasure in a cyber sale

Explore jaleole's classifieds for flamenco bargains.

Spring in Atlanta brings memories of last year's flamenco yard sale. It was an afternoon of bargain hunting, sipping lemonade and a lot of flamenco chit chat.

This year, the lawn full of flamencas with goods to sell or purchase can be found online at the jaleolé classifieds. Use this valuable tool to pass on picos that are ready for a new closet or to pick up a bata de cola that's waiting to fly through the air. It's the closest thing to a yard sale during this busy time of year.

Share your flamenco goodies by e-mailing classifieds@jaleole.com or browse the items for sale at www.jaleole.com/classifieds.htm

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© jaleolé.com 2006