IN|FORM | Diego Perez
Contributed by Diego Pérez, Flamenco House Brisbane
It embraces you, warmly and pushes you to the reality of life. It makes you understand many things and discover many others. It serves you as a refuge, as a shield of power and with it you feel from the joy of finding your true love to the sadness of losing a child. It comes of the blood and the ground. It comes from a mixture of cultures and centuries of traditions. It is the most beautiful full moon night. It is the cave in which a candle illuminates the hope of a “tomorrow”. Power, passion, tears and smiles. It is all the feelings, intensities and colours. It is magic, pure magic. It is the sound of the waves of the Mediterranean and the tears that tear hearts. It is all in one.
This is flamenco ...
My name is Diego Pérez. I arrived in Brisbane, Queensland 8 months ago with the dream of spreading my passion. I have been professionally dancing flamenco for 11 years and in this style I found myself. I fell in love with flamenco as it is a real and emotional dance, since its different styles move your feelings in different ways. I started my studies at the Museum of Art in Lima, Peru, where I was part of the cast of flamenco and Spanish dances “Fuego Andaluz’’ as the first dancer and dance instructor.
I continued my studies in other schools such as “Amor de Dios” (Madrid, Spain) and “Carmen de las Cuevas” (Granada, Spain). I have always been committed to the dissemination of any art. In my country I was a member of the National Dance Council, whose mission is to decentralise art and culture and take it to all corners of the country.
Now, in Brisbane, I founded Flamenco House - Brisbane, a space where I teach Flamenco in the most organic way, as a means of expression or simply to have a good time. One of my favourite phrases is “I dance like me, you dance like you”. I give flamenco as a tool; I explain what it means and what its technique is. You are in charge of incorporating it into your life story, expressing it with your own body language and creating your unique style. I particularly like to see diversity in my classes, I do not pretend that my students are an exact copy of me. I try to polish them and create the best version of themselves.
I consider flamenco (and all the culture that is related to it) as a complete dance. Not only for the complexity of its technique, the use of various accessories such as the hand fan, the shawl, the castanets, but for all the theoretical and practical work to achieve an improvement. There are many hours of rehearsal, a lot of research, listening to stories from centuries ago to understand what the background of the music is. It is such a beautiful and fascinating world that once you enter it, there is no way to come back.
Flamenco was declared an intangible heritage of humanity in 2010 by UNESCO. From this moment on, it has gained popularity worldwide. I feel the responsibility to bring this beautiful artistic expression to every corner of Queensland, a responsibility that I certainly enjoy!