How Kasandra suffers for her art, and the Queen of the castanets

An ideal day in Jerez during the festival,
is one in which you have eaten, drunk, socialized, gone shopping , and danced...all before seeing the first show of the evening.....then a visit to a Peña (an all night flamenco club - where the "real" stuff happens in Jerez)

Yesterday would have been one of those days were it also sunny.
Instead... The cold and rain came back, and that complicated the socializing and shopping part until the shows started.

BUT not much gets in the way of the flamencos and the shows...it just involves getting soaked - simple.
We will do anything to get our fix.

So .......I spent the day working in my hotel room...(behind the neighbouring doors I could hear others practicing guitar, castanets, cante...) and Kasandra spent her day working on grant proposal paperwork...we commiserated about the complications of office work abroad...like a printer = we need printer access!
As you know by trying to read my lengthy blog entries....it's hard to read off the screen.
Much easier to print out and read.

We arrange to meet at the supermercado at 5 pm, as we knew we could at least shop for essentials while waiting for the rain to let up and then find the famous "bum skirt store" . (Susan found these great dancing skirts in the new style for a great price )
...before hitting the first show of the evening just outside of town.

The rain did not let up...so we spent the hour in the grocery store...until it was time to get a Taxi out of town.
We wandered the isles amusing ourselves by decoding the labels on different types of Spanish soaps , skin creams, packaged convenience foods (including a good potato torta , and Kasandra's favorite ready made gazpacho (andalousian cold soup).

Then a dash in the rain... HEY! - there's a bus waiting that's goes to that town and one of the girls we are with suggests we get on.
BIG MISTAKE ... as it is a milk run, and with the windows steamed up and packed with wet smelly people. We arrive half an hour later, and poor Kasandra (who like things to be ordered and efficiently run....) is car-sick, home-sick, wet , cold, frustrated , and very grumpy.

She suffers terribly for her art and students... This girl is Vancouverite through and through! How she has managed to come back here seven years in a row with her temperament, shows how dedicated she is about staying up to date with current flamenco, and how seriously she takes her job. It's not easy for her here, yet she is determined to do what she came to do.
This country is a logical left/brainers' nightmare! It defies organized thought.
She and I are constantly amused and entertained by our personality differences. I love the dirt, smoke and chaos here.
I feel like I've come home. Spain works like my head.
She is completely stressed by it. Kasandra loves her life at home. She misses her husband, the clean air... the way things work more logically... her rice cooker ....people who don't think she is Japanese....
She has a great tongue in cheek sense of humour about herself, and a straightforward honesty. The more I get to know her, the more I respect and appreciate this woman.

On that horrid bus we met Jill...(a flamenco teacher from White Rock BC) just in from a holiday visiting family in South Africa, all tanned and looking forward to hanging out at the beach between classes. We let her down gently, that if she goes to the beach, she'll need a parka!

We all finally file into the dry and warm theatre, and when the show starts, we are treated like the oddest and most charming couple.
I as yet have no idea who they were... but she was a virtuoso castanet player...and he an incredible classico spanish guitarist.

The lights came up on a man with waist length straight blonde hair tied back in a long pony-tail .
... He took the looooooongest time in complete silence to position and re-position his body in perfect form. Placing his hands "just so", and shifting the guitar around until it was "just" right.
He then completed the position by embracing the guitar, and literally curling around it with his head tucked right down ... almost touching his nose on the strings so you are watching the top of his head, and hearing his breathing through the whole performance .

Then out came an extra-ordinarily beautiful and striking looking woman with long curly red hair , and the most peculiar and unflattering brown patterned dress which she wore through the whole performance ....
(it aptly had a big black Q printed on the front ... I can only think it meant -- Por Que? -- “why” this dress?
She was so beautiful ..I wanted her to be in something that suited her.

They were the most interesting duet I've seen in a long time... and both brilliant musicians.
She on the what I can only call nouveau/classico/expressionistic/Isadora Duncan castanets....and he - Mr. modern Segovia 2006 man.

Honestly - he played beautifully ....and she expressively and with astounding skill.....interpreting his music with the castanets , sometimes all over her body....

She with extroverted visually dynamic expression ... and passion.… and he with powerful introversion. They comunicated in some deep way, and it showed as they performed each piece.

Over and over ....( half the amount would have wowed us. )
But by the time it had finished... I had re-designed the dress about a hundred times....

I can't help but hear Oscar's voice...."LESS IS MORE".

Kasandra showed us how to best score a taxi in a crowd....which is basically push your way yelling in Spanish "IT'S MY TAXI GET OUT OF THE WAY! (she has learned this basic survival skill out of pure nessecity!