So have you been practicing? Pack your bags and guitar, your dance shoes or warm up your vocal chords if you are singer and get ready to compete in New Mexico for the best Flamenco performance and walk away with $750 in cash! Our friends at the National Institute of Flamenco are hosting the Fifth National Flamenco Competition as part of the larger 20th Annual Festival Flamenco Internacional de Albuquerque.
You can get more information below or visit to download your competition entry form: http://nationalinstituteofflamenco.org/news/view/415/
Festival Flamencos National Flamenco Competition is the only of its kind in North America. This exciting competition is open to semi-professional and professional dancers, singers and guitarist from all over the country and abroad. Judges are the best flamenco artists in the world and in past competitions have included La Farruca, Israel Galvan, Andres Marin, Ursula Lopez, Mercedes Amaya and others.
This years competition will offer cash prizes!
First Place wins $750
Second Place wins $500
Third Place wins $250
The Rules (Please visit http://nationalinstituteofflamenco.org/news/view/415/ for complete rules and regulations.)
Participants may be semi-professional to professional dancers, singers or guitarist.
Participants must perform a flamenco piece that is no longer than 8 minutes. Those exceeding 8 minutes will be disqualified.
Participants will be provided with one professional level guitarist and singer. Names will be drawn lottery style to assign guitarist and singers with participants. Accompanist will include: Jose Fernandez, El Veneno, Ricardo Diaz, Calvin Hazen, Mariano Manzella and Felix de Lola.
Participants will be given two 45 minute rehearsals with their accompanists to be scheduled June 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th. Participants are encouraged to arrive in Albuquerque by Thursday June 8th to begin rehearsals. There will be no technical rehearsal for preliminary contestants, however, final contestants may receive technical theater support.
Participants may bring up to 2 palmeros for accompaniment, however, no other percussion is allowed.
Competition entrance fee is $100 due upon registration for those registered for classes in Festival Flamenco. Entrance fee is $300 for those not registered in Festival Flamenco workshops.
Preliminary Competition will take place in Rodey Theater, UNM on June 11th from which judges will choose final participants to compete again in Rodey Theater, UNM on June 12th.
Prizes will be awarded to the best participants as deemed by a group of international flamenco artist who will act as judges. NIF is not responsible for, nor is any way connected to participant judgment.
Deadline for Concurso Registration is June 9th 2006.
To register for Concurso Nacional de Flamenco visit The National Institute of Flamenco at:
Fifth Annual National Flamenco Competition Page: http://nationalinstituteofflamenco.org/news/view/415/
National Institute of Flamenco Website http://www.nationalinstituteofflamenco.org
Address: NIF 214 Gold SW Albuquerque, NM 87102 505-277-1865
In 1987 the University of New Mexico asked a young flamenco dancer and instructor from New Mexico to present a special event for the College of Fine Art’s 50th Anniversary. That dancer was Eva Encinias-Sandoval, and the event was a small festival of three workshops and two performances featuring three flamenco artists from outside the state. The small festival was enough to create a buzz about flamenco in New Mexico.
1987 was the year Eva became the founder and director of the only flamenco festival outside of Spain, and her relentless drive to make flamenco available to New Mexico, and essentially to the entire country, has come to fruition. Though it hasn’t been without a struggle, Eva has done what virtually no other individual has ever done in this country with the art form of flamenco. She has risked her career, her reputation, and her financial well-being year after year to support the art form right here in Albuquerque, not to mention that she has never, in twenty years, benefited financially from it.
People have asked her, why would someone go to such great lengths, risk so much, spend a lifetime of work in New Mexico on an ethnic dance form that belongs in Spain? Eva has said, “Because flamenco belongs to us too.†Her mother was brought up in the art form, as was her mother’s mother. It is part of her family tradition, and a part of New Mexico’s Hispanic tradition as well.
Because of the excellence in artistry presented, supported, and educated here in New Mexico under Eva’s flamenco organization, The National Institute of Flamenco, national attention has grown over the years. The festival has been honored in the Oprah Magazine, and visitors from all over our country, Canada, Mexico, South America and abroad have traveled to New Mexico to experience the state’s flamenco educational programs and presentations. Celebrities such as Debbie Allen have traveled to New Mexico to attend performances presented by Eva – proving that flamenco is not an antiquated dance and music form to be archived in Spanish history but a vibrant relevant expression of social circumstance.
It is alive today in the American Southwest in part by the efforts of Eva who had the courage to claim her heritage to it, and to solidify its place in our community through her selfless acts of commitment. Because of her work, Albuquerque has been called “the Sevilla of North America.†New Mexico has hosted 20 years of flamenco festivals, and is like a second home to flamenco dignitaries. Albuquerque has surprisingly become a home to an artistry unparalleled in any major city in the US.
Eva has brought flamenco a long way from 1987. Her nurturing of the art form and the community’s exposure to flamenco has led to unprecedented triumph. In 2006, Festival Flamenco Internacional offers much more than the three workshops and two performances of 1987. This year, the festival offers 52 artists from Spain and around the world in 10 world-class performances. This year 8 days of 32 workshops in dance, guitar, singing, percussion, history, and theory are presented at the University of New Mexico. This year New Mexican residents can see all the performances at a special rate with the New Mexico Pass – Eva’s idea of course, and her own way of personally inviting all New Mexicans to be part of the greatness of the art form. This year is the year to truly experience the fruits of a 20-year labor of love by the woman who would not let flamenco die. Though Spain may be the birthplace of flamenco, indeed Eva has made New Mexico flamenco’s heartland. Her only wish is to see us all take advantage of it!
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