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Principal dancer Marisol Encinias performs her solo for the event Yjastros: Vivimos! on Friday night at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. Yjastros: Vivimos! is the first full theatre performance of Yjastros: The American Flamenco Repertory Company since a fire devastated their flamenco studio last December.

Principal dancer Marisol Encinias performs her solo for the event Yjastros: Vivimos! on Friday night at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. Yjastros: Vivimos! is the first full theatre performance of Yjastros: The American Flamenco Repertory Company since a fire devastated their flamenco studio last December.

Flamenco group rebounds after fire guts studio

The non-profit organization, National Institute of Flamenco and dance company Yjastros held their biannual show at the National Hispanic Cultural Center last weekend after a fire of unknown cause destroyed the institute last December.

Marisol Encinas, a fourth-generation flamenco dancer, said Yjastros performs “Vivimos” every spring and fall, but after the fire, the company was unable to hold their spring performance because they lost most of their costumes and practice space.

Encinias said it felt great to be back and to have performed for the first time in almost a year since the fire.

Despite all of the overwhelming loss, she said, there was never a point in which she felt the show would not go on.

“That’s part of flamenco — it’s the nature of flamenco: you don’t know what’s going to happen, and you have to be able to respond at that time and be passionate about it but use your head,” she said. “Give all that you got, but don’t lose control. That is what we strive for in our organization.”

The important part was realizing that no one got hurt, she said. Everything that was inside is replaceable.

“This is an opportunity for us to see what direction we really want to be moving in — to see what changes lay ahead and how we are going to respond to it,” Encinias said.

The fire forced everyone to be flexible while still focusing on the discipline of flamenco, she said.

“You get used to having the fact that life always presents you with challenges, and you know that something else is going to happen,” Encinias said.

Marisa Magallanez, the director of business strategy and philanthropy at NIF, said the title of the show, “Vivimos,” means ‘we live’ in Spanish. The title represents the company’s perseverance to keep flamenco alive, she said.

“The fire was certainly a change, and what’s coming next for the institute is a really exciting time,” Magallanez said. “We are using the fire and the energy and the community’s support as a springboard for the next chapter for flamenco here in Albuquerque.”

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Education has been the foundation for the institute, she said. Margallanez said she believes the new chapter incorporates an expansion on education through touring on a global level.

“We are trying to make this art as accessible as we can to the wider community,” she said.

Magallanez said the value of the lost costumes amounted to more than $500,00 and a total of $1 million in damage was sustained.

The long history of flamenco partnered with long lasting relationships within the community helped keep the art alive through the fire, she said.

“Having our relationship with the UNM department of theater and dance and then the charter school that we founded five years ago; those two organizations have housed us for the last year,” Magallanez said. “It gave us a lot of time to plan and not jump into a facility project or be rushed.”

The institute raised about $30,000 the first week after the fire, she said. A lot of the grassroots donations were from the community and from large corporations such as Wells Fargo in Albuquerque.

Tamaya Toulouse, public relations and marketing consultant to National Institute of Flamenco, said without a single place to call home, the company hasn’t been able to put on as many improv shows this year, an important educational aspect of the institute.

“I think people forget that flamenco is a call and response art form,” Toulouse said. “The stuff that you see on stage here can be like the older Flamenco where it is improvisation. The singers, the musicians and the dancers all speak to each other with their sounds and their movements and their song.”

The group has to work between the UNM office and a charter school Tierra Adentro, she said. In January they will move to a new building that they call a “midterm solution” across the street from their old place.

The new home will have three flamenco studios and will be 3,800-square-foot, smaller than their old home, she said. The new location will be their home for the next five years or so.

In January, the institute will host free classes all month long to show their appreciation for the community, she said. It is a thank-you to everyone who helped support the Institute after the fire.

“There has been such a huge out-pouring of support. Everything from the neighbors downtown, to UNM and letting people use dance space,” Toulouse said.

Moriah Carty is the assistant culture editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at cultureassistant@dailylobo.com or on Twitter 
@MoriahCarty.

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