Here is just a smidgen, a taste, an amuse-bouche of one of my Sola’s Travel Writing Award winning stories titled Where God, Anchovies, and Flamenco Reside — Two Tales of Jerez. This spicy tale is included in my book Dance Life: Movin’ & Groovin’ Around the Globe

Flamenco was a fire I did not want to stick my hand into, yet there I sat in the front row at the club, just a foot away from the dancer poised on the stage. Her muscular back was turned to the audience, the floor-length ruby-red dress embroidered in roses clinging tightly to her, cinching in her narrow waist. With her black hair pulled into a sleek ponytail and an enormous silk chrysanthemum crowning her head like a Wimbledon hat, she was reminiscent of a super-feminine Frida Kahlo in flamenco garb.

Slowly, silently, she pivoted, raised her arm, and pointed an accusatory finger at the audience.

That jabbing finger said it all: cheater, heartbreaker, unfaithful lout!

You! You! And you! 

I knew she wasn’t pointing at me specifically (I’d never even seen her before, after all), but my instinct was to duck and cover from her scorching glare.

Far from finished, she lowered her arm. She was just warming up. A guitarist and singer joined her onstage.

Then came the decisive moment: she clawed at the hip-clinging skirt, pulled it up her thighs with lacquered fingernails—and began to dance. The guitarist’s hands blurred in a strumming fury as the dancer’s feet pounded out the beat. The singer’s eyes bulged as he hit a high note.

I squirmed in my seat.

During intermission Jordan, my partner, leaned toward me, waggled an eyebrow, and asked, “Don’t you want to take a lesson?”

Here is the fantastic flamenco dance video that inspired my trip to Jerez.

copyright Lisa Alpine