As the soulful poetry of a Spanish gypsy fades away to the strumming of the flamenco guitar and rhythmic hand clapping, the dancer on stage is tapping her heels faster and her complex hand gestures are holding the audience captive.
As the dance ends the audience slowly breaks out of the spell and remembers to applaud, thunderously.
The dancer, Fiona Malena, directs the attention of her audience to the other performers on stage. Her hands articulating to her audience, ‘But for them, what would my talent be.’
Malena, 27, is a born and bred Calgarian. Yet her passion for flamenco, a gypsy dance form from the southern Spanish region of Andalusia, equals that of a die-hard Spaniard.
A lot of dancers get to a certain level and leave for Spain, she says.
But Malena wants Calgary’s fast evolving, cosmopolitan art scene to have a space for flamenco on the mantle.
“That’s why I want to stay here and develop the flamenco culture.”
She was exposed to flamenco when she was young but she didn’t take it very seriously. But in her teens she started getting more interested in the dance form. The turning point for her was a show by Calgary-based flamenco guitarist Peter Knight. The show featured a Mexican dancer whose masterful dancing combined with Knight’s expert guitar work opened Malena’s eyes to a new world.
“I saw how everything came together in the show. And I didn’t just want to watch the show; I wanted to be a part of it.”
With Knight as her mentor, she began her immersion into the fascinating world of this gypsy dance form. While attending university, Malena took few trips to Spain, the Mecca for flamenco aficionados.
She was still mulling the question of whether she wanted to be a bailaora, a flamenco dancer, for the rest of her life or not.
“But then flamenco started taking over my life. And I just let it.”
There have been ups and downs since but there has been no looking back.
Flamenco demands everything that one has to give, Malena says.
“Motivating yourself is hard to do when you’re an artist,” she says.
And trying to break new ground in a traditional art form, on land foreign to the art, taught Malena a few hard-learned lessons. Mistakes happened and she took the criticism to heart.
But she’s learned that people have different opinions on how flamenco must be and that’s their point of view.
“When you’re out there, you have to be more internal. Now the only thing that would really upset me would be if I stopped growing as an artist.”
It’s hard for her to stay so far from the home of her art form and maintain the deep sub-conscious connection that spurs her on.
“When I’m in Spain, flamenco is everywhere. But in Canada I have to make a conscious effort to surround myself with it.”
But even in Stampede town, Malena has managed to immerse herself in her art. Not only is she is a flamenco performer, she is also a flamenco teacher.
So far, teaching has been a mixed experience for Malena.
“I enjoy teaching people who are in it for the right reasons. But some people can’t make the commitment that flamenco needs and when they leave you’re not sure what you left them with.”
She hopes that some of her love for the dance rubs off on her students, whether they choose to stay or not.
Malena is also keeping herself busy by learning how to play the flamenco guitar.
“I’m terrible at it though,” she says, laughing at her ineptitude with strings. “Especially since I know how it's supposed to sound.”
There is a dearth of good flamenco musicians, she says. Especially singers.
“Singing is the most unreachable part of flamenco. The nuances of voice and tone are so difficult.”
Although she hasn’t tried singing yet, she is trying to spread the magic of flamenco in her hometown.
And that’s how the Fiona Malena Flamenco Society came about. A non-profit organization, the society works towards increasing awareness about flamenco through performances and outreach.
Poesia Gitana, Spanish for gypsy poetry, is a flamenco performance being organized by the Society at the Calgary Opera Centre on Nov.18.
Artists like percussionist Amir Amiri and actor Grant Paterson are contributing their talents to the show.
Amiri will be adding some Persian influence to the show with the santoor, a 72-string instrument, while Paterson will be reading English translations of Spanish poetry during the intervals between performances.
Malena, as artistic director of the Society, hopes the poetry will help novices to flamenco get some context to the art form.
She also hopes to dispel some misconceptions about flamenco. For instance, a lot of people think that flamenco involves couples dancing.
“Flamenco is not a social dance. It’s like the ballet.”
And just like ballet it takes a lifetime of learning.
“The thing I like a lot about flamenco is that it’s an extended art form. Sixty-, 70-year-olds are up on stage performing.”
Malena hopes to do the same. In a few years, she would like to have a bigger flamenco community in Calgary.
“I would like to have a larger reach and more impact for flamenco. I would like to reach people’s lives in significant way.”
And she’s depending on hard work to achieve results. She doesn’t have any lucky charms and she probably doesn’t need one.
She does remember having a packaged band aid in her shoe throughout one of her best performances.
But it wasn’t for luck. She’d slipped it in her shoe in case she needed it, but she forgot to slip it out before she started performing.
Throughout the performance, she wondered what was in her shoe.
“It was a great performance so I think it was a lucky band-aid,” she says, laughing at the idea. “I haven’t used the band-aid again though.”
Flamenco guitarist Holly Blazina, a long-time friend of Malena, would agree that Malena doesn’t depend on luck.
Blazina has known Malena for nearly six years but they have been performing together constantly for the past five months.
“I took a break from performing because I was playing the same traditional music,” Blazina says. “I decided to stop performing till I could be creative again.”
Working with Malena gives her the opportunity to try new things. Their mutual dedication to the art keeps them pushing each other’s creative limits.
“Sometimes I’ll come up with a different rhythm and she’ll improvise on her movements,” Blazina says.
“Or she’ll say to me give me this rhythm here, this there and that there and I can draw on my experience or improvise.”
While Malena is learning to play the flamenco guitar from Blazina, Blazina is working on her ability to come across on stage like Malena does.
“I’m not usually very comfortable with being in front of an audience,” she says. “But Fiona is very comfortable and shares everything with the audience and encourages other artists, even on stage.”
Malena’s students also deeply appreciate her encouragement.
Kate Skolnik has been Malena’s student for nearly three years and is also part of Malena’s dance ensemble.
“She has amazing qualities as a teacher,” Skolnik says. “She takes things down step-by-step.”
Malena also tries to inculcate a deep appreciation of the art in her students, so that while they learn the choreography, they still know how to improvise.
“She is very excitable and enthusiastic,” Skolnik says. “We will try anything in class.”
Skolnik giggles as she remembers the time they decided to do a choreography piece with canes.
Because they couldn’t find canes, they improvised with broomsticks. But they hadn’t taken into account the length of the broomstick.
“I think we took out a few bulbs that day,” she laughs.
Malena has been a huge influence for Skolnik.
“She doesn’t just focus on her own performance,” Skolnik says.
“She focuses on growing the community.”
And because she believes so deeply in community, Malena decided to be the Communications Chair for the Calgary West riding of the Green Party.
“I like the fact that they support the arts and the environment,” she says.
How does she balance her passion for flamenco with home and hearth?
“Not very well,” she says. She credits her husband for being extremely supportive and helping out wherever and whenever needed.
David Van Den Assem, who is Malena’s husband, tries to help out with the making of arrangements for performances, video recording her performances for later review and leaving her free to go to Spain for a period of three months so she can study her art further.
And even though he doesn’t have a flamenco background, Van Den Assem has started offering some very constructive advice to Malena.
“He’s become the ultimate flamenco critic,” she says, only half-jokingly.
Malena’s fixation with flamenco grows stronger every day and she hopes that’s how it will be for a long time to come.
“It’s an obsessive art form,” she says.
“It takes a lifetime.”
