Fancy footwork, 'fire and fury' lead students to form exotic dance troupe

If you've ever passed the Wilcox Dance Studio and heard the faint sounds of hammering, you probably attributed it to campus construction. However, chances are that what you heard was none other than the rhythmic footwork of Puro Flamenco, Princeton's only flamenco dance group.

Last year, Puro Flamenco was founded when Julia Ioffe '05 began looking around to see if there was an interest in flamenco dancing on campus. Julia, a flamenco dancer for the past three and a half years, initially became interested in it when she and her cousin were looking for a place to learn Latin ballroom dancing. Instead of finding a place to tango, they discovered flamenco, and Julia says that she quickly "got addicted" to the fire and fury of flamenco dancing.

Ioffe soon met up with Nicole Oncina '05, who has been dancing flamenco since she was ten years old. Sharing their enthusiasm for the brusque yet sensual gypsy dance, Ioffe and Oncina presented their idea of a flamenco dancing club to the Undergraduate Student Government for approval, and were thrilled when their proposal was accepted.

Thus, this past February, Puro Flamenco, translated as "Pure" Flamenco, began with a staccato fanfare of dance steps. Rather than incorporating the modern elements of nuevo flamenco, or "new" flamenco, the puro style of flamenco dancing embraces the traditional version of the dance.

According to Oncina, flamenco dancing is "really dirty, very rough," and is characterized by "catty movements." Though flamenco possesses a sensual grace and mysterious poise of its own, Ioffe describes flamenco as being "as far away from ballet as you can get."

"It is an exhibitionist dance," explained Ioffe. "[It says,] 'I wanna show you what I got.' "

And Puro Flamenco did indeed show us what they've got. After only three months of class and rehearsal, Puro Flamenco performed at Tiger Night, Communiversity, and the International Festival in the spring of 2002. Puro Flamenco currently has nine company members of a widely diverse background, and is looking forward to teaching the new, beginner members who have expressed interest.

Before long, Ioffe and Oncina hope for Puro Flamenco to be performing more frequently. They would like the club to put on a full length show soon, and want to bring in professionals from Fazil's, a flamenco dance studio in New York that gives workshops and lessons regularly. Julia would also like to see her former dance group in Washington, D.C. give a performance on campus.

Ioffe and Oncina often find it difficult to continue to improve their dance technique with no professional Flamenco teachers in Princeton, so they study flamenco whenever and wherever they can. Ioffe takes classes when she goes home to D.C. during school breaks, and spent this summer in an intense flamenco workshop. She took four classes per week with La Tati, a living legend in the realm of flamenco dancing.

Flamenco dancing originated in Northern India, and then migrated with the gypsies through Iran and into the Iberian Peninsula, picking up elements of style along the way. Flamenco dancing blends Indian hand movements with Arabian-style singing, and is almost always improvised. Usually performed with a live guitarist and soloist, flamenco is a dance of spontaneous communication. The dancers let the musicians know what they want the music to do by the rhythms and foot movements they use.

It is fitting then, that Ioffe and Oncina continue flamenco's traditions of spontaneous creation of music and dance from silence and multicultural influences. Virginia Pourakis '05, a member of Puro Flamenco, says that "it took a lot of effort for Julia and Nicole to start from nothing and create something great."

As dancers, Julia Ioffe and Nicole Oncina breathe life and energy into Spanish flamenco music with their dance. They do the same for Puro Flamenco, having created a dance group from scratch.

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What's most important is sharing their cultural experiences with a diverse group of fellow students. Pourakis says that she "feel[s] very lucky that [she] has such talented friends who are willing to share their talent with [her]."