Transfiguring the Commonplace.

When the now-legendary flamenco dancer Carmen Amaya (1913-1963) first danced in her village or camp, it was commonplace to do so. Expressive dance and music were part of the heritage of the Spanish gypsy [see Dancescape on page 4]. Perhaps because Amaya matured progressively as an artist and performer--and perhaps because modern transportation and communication fed the appetite for the exotic throughout the world--she and her company of flamenco dancers made the jump to professional dance artists. Her company was not the only one--there were many--and the entire genre of flamenco became a "legitimate" theater dance form. This was a shift, as far as dance critics and social anthropologists were concerned, from a folk or commonplace dance genre that is usually considered social dancing and is performed to demonstrate culturally specific traits and skills.

The continued evolving nature of flamenco is the subject of this month's editorial focus [see "Flamenco: From Puro to Nuevo" on page 46]: Steps and patterns have been named, a graded syllabus has been devised and is available for teaching consistently, workshops are arranged with master teachers, and contemporary flamenco dancers and musicians perform with twenty-first-century experiences and sensibilities. And twenty-first-century audiences everywhere are wild for them.

Still, there is tradition and the passion that animates flamenco that attracts. Especially the passion. In Dance Magazine's archives I came across a group of snapshots of then 15-year-old La Chuga (so named by her brothers who thought her so ugly). The typed note from a nameless traveler in South America observed simply, "This young girl dances like a wild tiger." And Matteo, who wrote The Language of Spanish Dance, asks slyly, "Must everything have a name? Has it established itself?" acknowledging that that unfinished edge, that becoming, is a part of the still growing and alluring body of the dance. Perhaps it is the moment where artistic choices are made, the passion rather than the discipline, that so attracts people to this dance form. It is at once natural, commonplace, and intense high art.

The Spanish national dance company is not flamenco; it is quite another story [see "Nacho Duato and the Compania Nacional de Danza"]. Although it has an evolution out of the traditional images of Spain--at the time of Diaghilev's death and just prior to the Spanish Civil War, La Argentina's Spanish dance company was the largest ballet company in Paris [see review of Antonia Merce, "La Argentina": Flamenco and the Spanish Avant-Garde, Dance Magazine, March, page 71]--Compania Nacional de Danza's current artistic director choreographs work that is clearly of today's Europe. And you'll also see his work in the contemporary repertoires of prominent American companies; for example, American Ballet Theatre and San Francisco Ballet. Duato insists, though, that no matter how artistic the interpretation, it still must tie to the everyday life of his audiences. A remembrance of the commonplace, the folk?

We celebrate Jeffrey Gribler, not because he is ordinary, but because by his choices and image, he is extraordinary [see "Philly's MVP Takes a Final Bow" on page 58.] Choosing not to "go to New York," Gribler stayed and has made a long and satisfying career at Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Ballet, creating there an extensive and varied number of characters and roles. In so doing, he has given joyous service to his community and his colleagues.

I remember the walnut orchards that grew in our community when I was a girl. Black walnuts had strong and disease-resistant roots and trunks, but the nutmeats were tiny, the shell almost impervious to hammering, and the slippery hulls were messy and stained anything they touched. So growers fused English walnut grafts onto the black walnut rootstock when trees reached a certain age. When the grafts "took" the trees grew tall and umbrella-like, producing large, blond nutmeats in relatively easy-to-crack shells. Such grafting has doubtless gone on since Eden, and the sharing of attractive cultural traits, and the stealing of steps, only for a little less time.

The growth of the ordinary into something else, the appropriation of style and form to fit a need to express, the meaning-making that resonates with others continues in dance, but never for long without strong roots.

Editor in Chief K. C. Patrick is a recycled mom who left the business world to return to the arts. For ten years she was editor of Dance Teacher Now. She has worked for Dance Magazine both in New York and in California.