USA Projects

Olas Performing at TEDxDirigo in 2011:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xMzWKLIkdb0

I am a dancer, choreographer, and writer from Maine. My primary dance medium is flamenco dance interwoven with modern and contemporary dance and music, as well as creative writing, to create conceptual performance pieces. Currently, I am enrolled in a nine-month intensive flamenco dance training in Seville, Spain at el Centro de Arte y Flamenco de Sevilla that runs from October 2011 to July 2012. The program is run by flamenco dancer Miguel Vargas and flamenco singer Esperanza Fernández, two leading artists in Spain’s contemporary flamenco community. The program is designed to train students in all aspects of flamenco dance.  For an average of 20-25 hours per week, I am instructed in flamenco technique and choreography, ballet, bata de cola, castanets, singing, and palmas (percussive clapping) under the instruction of flamenco artists Miguel Vargas, Esperanza Fernández, Curro Fernández, Carmen Ledesma, La Choni, Sara López, Francis Núñez Cabello, and Jorge Pérez. Studying in Seville allows immersion into the heart of flamenco.  Due to the quality and location of the program, this training is pivotal to my advancement as a dancer and choreographer of flamenco and flamenco-inspired work.   

My objectives in completing this program are to advance my career as a dancer, performance artist, and writer.  As I train as a dancer, I have been documenting my experiences through creative prose on a blog entitled Letters and Letras at www.lindseybourassa.wordpress.com. This blog allows supporters of my project to become engaged in my experience through my writing and photographs. Through this training and creative writing, I hope to generate stronger artistic foundations and new ideas for future works, including the work of creating a flamenco community and a more expansive dance community in Maine. I have begun part of this latter work by creating and performing with a flamenco-inspired music and dance ensemble named Olas. I created Olas in 2008 with the desire to tap into Maine’s rich musical and artistic community to create something unique, reminiscent of flamenco, and yet comprised of all original music and choreographies. Together we blend Afro-Cuban, American folk, rock, Arabic and flamenco-inspired music with flamenco, contemporary, and modern dance. My role in Olas is as a dancer, choreographer, songwriter (lyrics), scriptwriter, and palmista (performer of palmas). Our work together has created a body of original work, a full-length album, and a community that honors music and dance as expressive outlets.   

As an artist, I am interested in studying flamenco as a traditional art form in order to inform my work as a dancer and choreographer of original, flamenco-inspired works that cross genres and that speak to my own cultural influences. Your support in funding this project will allow me to complete my training in Seville and will therefore play a vital role in enabling me to create new, more powerful and innovative future works as an individual artist and in collaboration with other artists, as well as to create a flamenco community in Maine.  I am here in part thanks to a grant from the Maine Arts Commission which helped fund program tuition.  Your support will go directly towards financing my stay and the completion of my third trimester, specifically: the purchase of needed dance materials (new flamenco shoes, castanets, a bata de cola skirt, and ballet shoes), travel expenses to flamenco sites in Andalusia for workshops, seminars and performances, living expenses in Seville so I may continue and complete my training, and finally, a plane ticket home.