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Flamenco performers put on dancing boots for Golden’s Movies & Music in the Park

BY CORINNE WESTEMAN CWESTEMAN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

With storm clouds on the horizon and rain falling all around the Denver area Friday evening, Goldenites looking to enjoy a night of music, dancing and animated storytelling made a wish that the storm would pass them by so the show could go on.

And their wish was granted.

On July 7, the City of Golden kicked o its summertime Movies & Music in the Park series with amenco performers followed by “Puss in Boots: e Last Wish.” World-renowned guitarist René Heredia — of the René Heredia Flamenco Center for Guitar and Dance — led the performers in songs and dances from all over Spain and beyond.

Heredia also explained some of the history behind amenco, which has elements from multiple cultures found in Spain — Arabic, Jewish, Romani and others. e songs and dances they performed spanned from Galicia in northwest Spain to Andalusia in the south; and took elements from bull ghting, religious processions, Caribbean rhythms and more.

Dancer Diane Lapierre, who’s been performing with Heredia for 25 years, said that the beautiful mix of cultures was one of the things that drew her to study amenco dancing.

She loves the costumes and rhythms, emphasizing how the dancers create the rhythm with their feet. When done properly, she said, there’s a nice back-and-forth between the musicians and the dancers, as they feed o each other.

“Anybody can nd a piece of themselves in it,” Lapierre said of studying amenco.

Singer and guitarist Andréana Cortés, who’s also Heredia’s niece, grew up studying amenco with her family in California. Now, she teaches dance and guitar as she recently founded the Colorado Institute of Flamenco.

Heredia originally came to Colorado for a few weeks to perform, but decided to stay when he saw how there was a need to share amenco here, Cortés said. She has the same drive to share and preserve amenco as an art form, saying, “We must preserve it for the next generations.”