For Alyssa Teijeiro-Ficht and Brian Stark of the Illinois Flamenco-Jazz Collective, flamenco is an underrated art form, especially in communities like Champaign-Urbana.
The duo met in 2019 at a flamenco concert through mutual friends. While Teijeiro-Ficht was training in flamenco his style of dance, Stark was interested in learning more about the musical side of the art form.
From there, the two decided to start the Illinois Flamenco Jazz Collective in Spring 2020, with Teijiro Fichto as Dance Director and Stark as Music Director. The group aimed to combine flamenco dance and music to perform at venues throughout the campus and her CU community. Soon after, the duo applied for a Global Crossroads grant through the university’s Center for Global Studies.
“The idea of Crossroads was specifically to explore a mix of Spanish music and American jazz,” Stark said.
Flamenco is a folk music that originated in southern Spain. It incorporates singing (cante), baile (dance) and talk (the art of playing the guitar) to create a strong and rhythmic style of music.
According to Stark, the collective infused traditional flamenco-style music with jazz inspiration, moving away from traditional guitar-heavy melodies and incorporating non-traditional elements such as saxophones, flutes, and violins. I’m here.
“One of the things I find really cool about how dance blends into the music is that it’s almost like percussion,” he said. “It’s cool to see how the footwork makes the music stand out and brings out percussive elements that aren’t just guitars and vocals.”
Teijeiro-Ficht is a senior in the school’s education department, and Stark teaches at the University of Illinois at Springfield. Using their different backgrounds to their advantage, the duo said they expect both the local community and college students to join the ranks of the collective’s dancers and musicians.
“One of the things I love about our collective is that it mixes really well. Brian mostly gets information from the community, and I mostly get it from the students,” says Teijiro Fikto. Told. “So when we perform as a collective, we have a pretty good balance of members and where they come from.”
With the 2020 launch, COVID-19 has been a major challenge for the collective. Especially since the quarantine hit early in the group’s development, canceling multiple performances and reducing attendance.
“We were doing workshops every week where the community was invited to join a musical or dance ensemble,” Stark said. COVID-19 has really stopped a lot of the momentum we had.”
Despite these challenges, Teijeiro-Ficht said the collective has been successful in its efforts to spread cultural awareness and expression in Champaign Urbana. She further explained the importance of sharing the art of flamenco with the community.
“Having a flamenco group that represents Spain and all that Spain has to offer is a good lesson for those who hear the word ‘Spanish’ and think ‘Mexican’. – said Ficht.
Teijiro-Ficht elaborated on her family’s Spanish heritage, saying that her grandfather was born in Spain, where she learned the style of flamenco. She said it reflected her love for flamenco and her desire to spread her family’s culture “in lesser-known, less-heard-of and celebrated places.”
“Flamenco is a very passionate thing,” said Teijiro Ficht. “Having that, I think getting people to see something from Spain is very important for people who identify with that culture to feel represented in this community.”
The Illinois Flamenco-Jazz Collective will be performing at the Folk and Roots Festival in Champaign-Urbana in October. For the show, the group will have about five musicians and three dancers, and the duo said they were looking forward to it.
“Last year we only had 30 minute sets because the music was so hard to learn and by the time folk and roots came along, we had about seven songs ready. Minutes of music. But this year. , it’s actually going to take an hour, and I’m looking forward to it.”
As Teijeiro-Ficht prepares to graduate in the spring, she said she wants to recruit other students to take over the dance aspect of the collective.
“I’m from Chicago, so I plan to either go home or go somewhere else after graduation,” she said. “But I’m going to try to recruit other underclassmen who can keep it going.
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