Those very important E-mails you sent were never received, your I-pod froze, the Blackberry messenger failed to accept your most recent contact, your server went down at the time you were finishing an important proposal for a client, the alarm clock did not ring, the home answering machine broke, a huge misunderstanding with your co-worker took place at the office and your new date had no idea you had agreed to meet before his call?

Yes, all that is happening because Mercury is in a retrograde motion.  Moreover, It’s snowing like crazy in New York City and life seems more chaotic than one could even imagine.

I have a friend in the city who is an actress.  Her name is Puy Navarro and she is from Valencia.  We met last year, introduced by a mutual, Brazilian friend who happens to be one of the best actors in the country.

Puy is precise and punctual.  She’s also a Sevillanas instructor, she’s certainly acquainted with the concepts of rhythm, tempo, and space.  Together we share a passion for Andalusian culture, especially in regard to great Flamenco legends like dancer Soledad Barrio and her husband Martin Santangelo, artistic director of the Noche Flamenca touring company.

In December, one month in advance, Puy called to tell me that Soledad would be in town for just a short period of time and ask if I desired to join her to see the performance.  I am fully aware that Puy is very well acquainted with Soledad and periodically worked for the Noche Flamenca in Spain and in New York.

“Are you kidding Puy?  Of course I am in!  By the way please, please kindly intervene and ask Soledad if I can have the pleasure of an interview and permission take some pictures for my website.” 

“Claro mi amor, consideralo hecho,” (of course, my love consider it done!) she said.

Consulting astrologers in my life, I have recently learned a very important concept: Never consider anything done when Mercury is retrograde!

And here I am on a Saturday morning in bed.  It’s 11:30, it’s snowing outside, and I don’t need to be anywhere.  I feel like relaxing quietly exactly where I am but my cell is ringing.  “Joelle? Donde estas?”

”What do you mean where am I?  I am in bed Puy, why?”

“Dios mio, the show is starting in 5 minutes!  Did you forget?”

I realize for a few seconds that I am speechless.  “Isn’t the show at midnight?”  Puy, irritated as you can imagine, tells me in English with a strong Spanish accent that everybody is waiting for me and that even if I miss the interview, I should manage to at least arrive in time for the show if nothing else.

I close the phone, speechless, with a simple “Okay,” as an answer.  Without going to my closet, I quickly pick up last night’s clothes from a chair.  Almost without taking time to breathe, I put my ugly Uggs on and rush by taxi to Joe’s Pub on Lafayette Street downtown.

The cell number for Xavier, the company’s assistant, is all I’ve got to get in.  When I ask him on the phone what he looks like, he tells me he looks like a gypsy, has long hair, is wearing ‘everything black’ and cannot speak English.  Very cute at twenty years old, Xavier finds me and takes my handbag, coat, hat, and umbrella.  He asks with the sweetest voice if my camera shows a red blinking light when one pushes the shutter speed button.

“Yes.  No.  I don’t know,” is my answer.  I am completely moved by the sound of Spanish guitars and clapping hands coming from the other room.  “I just want to get in Xavier, just want to get in.”  The camera’s red light viewer goes through a meticulous layering process with Scotch tape.  I am finally led to my seat, right in front of the stage.  There they are, Soledad Barrio and Martin Santangelo, right in front of me.  I forget I still need to breathe.

Under the direction of Santangelo, the award-winning Noche Flamenca has become Spain’s most successful touring company.  Formed in 1993 by Martin and his Bessie award-winning wife, Soledad Barrio, the company regularly tours throughout the globe.

Performance highlights in North America include Berkeley’s Cal Performances, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, the Ravinia Festival, Wolf Trap, and the Hollywood Bowl, among others.  Internationally, the company has appeared on stages in Australia, New Zealand, Greece, and Egypt, among other countries.

In front of me the couple’s rigorous and synchronized foot steps transcend into a realm I can’t reach yet.  Immersed in the notion of universal tragedy, I start to relate to the primal scream of Flamenco by watching the severity in their expressions.  Perceiving the surrender of their interlaced souls to this theatrical performance, very quietly I am able to calm down and finally catch my breath.

Finally able to breathe, their penetrating performing presence in this micro-universe called Joe’s Pub makes me realize I am not alone in life’s limitations, whatever they are: social, spiritual, economic, physical or astrological.

And through this flamboyant Flamenco tactic directed by Martin Santangelo, Noche Flamenca‘s powerful sound of guitars, rhythm, hand clapping, dancing and the raucous intensity of its company singers, heartbreaking expressions of passion, despair, joy, or sorrow suddenly lead the repressive state of Mercury retrograding in my mind to transcend into a totally new dimension, confronting other emotional states that bare the toughest truths about human existence.

As dance critic Tobi Tobias wrote in her review: “The cast members of Noche Flamenca work as a team to provide mounting excitement, but putting them all in the shade, there’s Soledad dressed in black. She delivers her solos in chapters.  One segment finishes, having gone as far as it can.  A pause, and then the movement rouses up again, as if to tackle the same subject from a new angle.

Slowly, her hair falls loose from its tight arrangement bordering the nape of her neck as her soul seems to stiffen within, in sheer determination to explore fully what most people find it safest not to think about. She is the one who takes you places you might never reach without her.

Her feet go on striking relentlessly, now actuating a trembling through her bare legs, exposed as she roughly raises her skirt.  At the end of a section that seems to leave her exhausted, she keeps snapping her fingers at the musicians and curlicuing her hands at the wrists, apparently insisting that she still has something more to say.  At this point you feel that the vehemence of her mere glance might turn its object (singer, guitarist, viewer) to stone.

The stage darkens.  She moves to a light in the corner and crouches over it.  Then, having been trailed by the musicians in a raggedy processional, she swivels to face them.

She rises to her full height, stretching her arms high.  That final gesture reads as a triumphant announcement: Beyond death there is nothing to fear.”

On the way out, Puy introduces me to the company.  Martin very kindly invites me to watch the show once more this evening and possibly reserve some time for our interview.  Unfortunately, I must be in the Hamptons for the birthday of a dear friend of mine.

The next day Martin, Soledad, and the group are leaving early in the morning to proceed with their tour. Martin offers his E-mail so I can forward my questions.  He does not know that Soledad, without a word, during this retrograde phase of Mercury, already answered them all.

Joelle’s Picks:

The company: Soledad Barrio and the Noche Flamenca.

The company has launched a development initiative to help build the infrastructure to support ever more ambitious creative productions and a possible permanent home in New York for teaching and performing.

Noche Flamenca is dedicated to bringing the authentic form of Flamenco to the public through its performances around the globe.  Unfortunately, ticket sales only cover 40% of their expenses.  Contributions help offset the costs of rehearsals, costumes, salaries, transportation, etc.  All contributions are greatly appreciated and can be sent to:
168 West 86th St. Suite 9A
New York, NY 10024

The 2008 Promotional Video:

References : ‘Undertow’  by Tobi Tobias/Voice of Dance

The royal palace is one of the oldest in Europe, declared by UNESCO as Patrimony of Humanity, it’s a real jewel. It’s easy to be fooled into thinking this is a Moorish palace — some of the rooms and courtyards seem to come straight from the Alhambra. Most of them were actually built — by Moorish workmen it’s true — for King Pedro the Cruel of Castile in the 1360′s who, with his mistress Maria de Padilla, lived in and ruled from the Alcazar. Pedro embarked upon a complete rebuilding of the palace, employing workmen from Granada and utilizing fragments of earlier Moorish buildings in Seville, Cordoba and Valencia.

Pedro’s work forms the nucleus of the Alcazar as it is today and, despite numerous restorations necessitated by fires and earth tremors, it offers some of the best surviving examples of Mudejar architecture.

I am tired, the heat is killing me, no more Tapas or Sangria at night watching Flamenco, or listening to classic guitar until very late in the Cailles, tomorrow I am on my way to Granada. Even tired I could not stop being perplexed in front of Sevilla’s most dazzling gardens , where “Noches en los Jardines del Real Alcázar de Sevilla” evening outdoor concerts take place featuring classical music like the one last night of artist and poet Al Maqm, in his Músicas de Al-Andalus: de Damasco a Córdoba whose music intertwined with accompanying readings from great literary works.

Trust me everyone… between the Patio de las Munhecas, and el Patio de las Doncella crossing el Estaque de Mercurio, cruel isn’t King Pedro of Castile, but the one who does not realize that this place is like heaven on earth!

So many years have passed since I was born, and waited to be here. I had to travel all over the world passing from South America to India, Africa and Polynesia, scared to cross this land, the land of my grandmother Sarah, a widely respected Sephardic Jewish teacher with bright blue eyes.. And now here I am. Martin Luther King once said, “Time is always right to do what is right.” And time now, is right. I simply had, during all these years, to be one more of the many traditional Jewish world errands, to find out that I am back where I should have visited far too long ago. Apparently my soul and I weren’t ready.

It’s only after you search within yourself and your traveling that you can find, if it’s what you need to find, the true place of your origin. When you arrive in a site and feel a strong sense of affinity with the air, the climate, the music, the way people walk in the street, you can be sure it’s probably where :home” is. It’s a powerful feeling in the skin telling you haven’t had enough of that place, knowing there is always something else, something deeper to connect to, something which is only yours, and not allowing you rest or leave until you are done with what it really is. It’s about who you are , and what you owe , both being probably just there, around you before time, and probably long before your present existence.

If you understand the process and master this awareness, the path for what you are supposed to encounter in your destiny is automatically shortened. See for yourself.

My afternoon in Cordoba was stunning. I hold my breath several times inside the magical procession of 988 columns majestic double arches, and Byzantine mosaics, a mixture of architectural masterpieces and styles “breathing” side by side in a world that today has no tolerance for diversity of religions and beliefs. The Mezquita, a legacy of the Ummayid Caliphate in Spain, built during the 9th and 10th Centuries and consecrated as the cathedral in 1236 is today a jewel of the highest expression of Hispano-Islamic art. It is nothing close to what I expected and even having gazed for hours in the past at the Agra Taj Mahal, here I was breathless, something in my stomach, in the frustration of my camera’s limitations, and of a ridiculous impotent feeling of not being able to bring that whole world home. While I was trying to “capture” the atmosphere of the site I learn that the Great Aljama Mosque of Cordoba was begun in 786 by Abd al-Rahman I, and the last touches were made by Almanzor in 988. It was the place of worship for the rulers of the western Islamic empire Al-Andalus.

Abd al-Rahman I purchased the land for the mosque, destroying the Visigothic monastery of San Vicente and using its columns and capitals, along with columns brought from elsewhere. Before the existence of the monastery, there had been a Roman temple dedicated to Janus on the site.When Fernando III conquered Cordoba in the 1236, the Mosque was consecrated as a cathedral. In 1523, the cathedral canons ordered the center of the mosque pulled down to make way for a Gothic transept and apse, later embellished with Renaissance decorations and, in the mid-18th Century, Baroque choir stalls and pulpits. “Joelle,” I thought with myself, ” sit down, don’t panic, check your shots, after all you used 1600 ISO and no flash, it’s going to be all right. You have captured the emotion, don’t worry…and you know what?

You always have that blog, don’t you?

For it seems as if the celestial sphere were here”

Ibn Suhayd

While I wait for my room key at the reception desk, Xavier asks me if I had been to the Arab Bath. “Senorita,” he says, “you’ll feel so relaxed. You should try it!”  I ask for the address. Apparently, on a small street between Calle Aire de Dios and an old tobacco factory, I would find the Arab bath house and teteria called Aire de Sevilla.

I decide to follow his advice. It’s six o’clock in the evening and still terribly hot; a small break should not do me bad. As I start walking out of the Plaza Santa Maria Blanca, an intense aroma of sandalwood and cloves catches my attention, followed by a cloud of dense smoke coming in my direction from afar via the Calle Aire de Dios. Without hesitation, I follow my guiding spirit through the intensely scented smoke until a large wooden door presents itself imperiously in front of my humble eyes, leading me through a large entrance gate into an interior of blinding light and a roofless court.

I stumble on an arid stone floor, my iPod wires already a mess by now, staring at the space as if I cannot believe what I am seeing. The incense of sandalwood that brought me here still burns intensely in the floor on top of a paved fountain. Sanctuary, hiding Mecca, or a 1,200 meter mirage, this small palace called Aire de Sevilla, built in the sixteenth century by a viceroy from the Indies, is a treat for all senses.

I am asked what I would like to do, and my answer is everything. I am handed a piece of paper with all the rules, prices and services, and cordially invited to have a drink with pastries at the teteria upstairs while the sound of a Sufi flute in the background melodiously evokes my senses, reminding me of Kama Sutra practice at all levels. (Joelle’s suggested sexy literature)

I am expecting an Italian friend here in Seville who I haven’t seen since I was a young girl. I thought it would be nice to impress him with Arab Bath rituals, appearing as if, after all, I have become a grown woman that knows her way around. But honestly, it would be a better idea to test this place first by myself.

I am finally called inside, asked to take my clothes off and wear a bathing suit and special slippers so as not to slip on the wet floors. Then I am given a key for my locker at the Al- Bayt Al-Maslakh, (Apothiderium in Rome or changing room), where running water already takes its course to exactly I don’t know where yet. I attentively listen to quick explanations in Spanish of the suggested itinerary within the three mysterious subterranean floors of treated water, treasures of Greco- Roman and Muslim legacies with the sole intent of acquiring spiritual recreation and eternal skin rejuvenation.

My first stop as advised is in the basement of the hammam, the Al-Bayt Al Watsami (the Romans used to call it Tiepidarium, literally the intermediate room), where the water is at 36 degrees — equivalent to body temperatures that haven’t suffered from the Sevillian heat. We were told that the time spent in this enormous bath is as we please, a few couples hold hands, nobody can run or swim. Moroccan lanterns and tea light candles are everywhere, spreading an atmosphere of enchantment and a sublime dream-like quality.

Some time has passed. I decide to walk the waters towards Al Bayt Al Sahun, or the Caldarium bath. The water here is so hot, but I don’t seem to mind it. At this point already I feel nothing but endless surrender to the hot room rested on brick columns above a chamber containing a furnace heating the floor under my feet. I dream of El Cid, Prince Saladin, of the elegant flamenco dancer I watched last night at Casa de la Memoria Sefaradi, when a pretty young girl by my side with a warm smile reminds me in Spanish that I must not forget to dip into the waters of Al-Bayt Al Barid, (the Roman Frigidarium) for at least five minutes before my blood pressure drops.

Here I am, the Madawi, small star shaped highlights made of stone pottery, pierce the vault of the red and multicolored stucco wall of this freezing Al Barid bath.The blood runs through my veins and my heart races for this to end like a rebellious Arab horse. I repeat three times the hot-cold immersion and head to a powerful shower on the second floor below ground before entering a white nebulous steam room with an strong aroma of Eucalyptus vapor spinning around everywhere, making an almost unbearable noise. I sense the presence of other humans in the room but everything is too white and the mist can be compared to the one of a medieval Avalon. Time: fifteen minutes.

The next stage after the intermediate powerful shower is a jacuzzi in a geometrical shape with Byzantine mosaics on the walls, the best is that there is a special device that throws water to your neck and back with tremendous pressure. The last destination is on the third subterranean floor; for those who do not have claustrophobia it is the soothing. A salt treated water bath surrounded by Roman Style columns at room temperature softens my skin and prepares me for what is heaven on earth at floor one. Going back to the changing room, I help myself to spiced South African red tea, whose qualities are known to be an antidote for depression, and sweet pastries, while water still runs under my feet and a warm towel wraps my already purified body, anxiously awaiting to be thrown under a massage of expert and strong hands embedded with inviting aromatic oils.

They say in Brazil, God is Brazilian, but trust me Allah knew what he was doing when he created Andalusia and its Arab Baths.

Salam Aleikum

(May peace be with you)

This post is dedicated to a person that, like a mysterious wind on a warm Arab night, secretly came back into my life.

“Hotel Casas de La Juderia por favor Senior.”

This small hotel in heart of the old Barrio of Santa Cruz, near the Alamedas de las Cruzes, the magnificent cathedral, the Iglesia Santa Maria La Blanca and San Bartolome, lays on a street called La Juderia — the old Jewish Quarter –from a time when Jews, Muslims and Christians all lived in Seville with no major difficulties.

It is installed in a palace from the 1600′s once owned by the Duke of Beja, a great character in the history of Spain’s aristocracy and known as the patron of Cervantes. Within easy walking distance of the cathedral and other sights, the building has been a hotel since 1991. It’s now one of the best places to stay in Seville.

The taxi driver stops and I see no hotel. He then wakes me up from my thoughts and shows me the way through a very tiny street where I am supposed to go with the suitcase in my hand as he says, the car does not fit. I venture by myself down the almost nonexistent small street indicated by the taxi driver, a little apprehensive, exactly like every time around the world I “Invent” new places to stay.

My thoughts are immediately interrupted by the noise of water running. I look everywhere and finally discover a small gate with an interior Spanish patio with a Moorish Style fountain pouring never-ending water like there is no tomorrow.

Wow! What a pretty place out there, but where is my hotel? Suddenly I hear a man’s voice behind me… “Senorita!….Hola, Buenos tardes, la entrada es por aqui. Bienvenidos en la Casa de a Juderia, mi nombre es Xavier, la ajudo.” He has the deepest brown eyes and the most courteous smile I have never seen.

There are twelve houses altogether, surrounded and interlaced by small internal gardens and patios, some with fountains, some with art work, old terracotta pots and painted pebble mosaics. Every house is a three-floor Moorish style small building whose entrance wall carries carved in wood or sculpted in iron the family name of the former Sephardic Jewish owners. From the reception to my room in the Casas de los Padillas, Xavier just tells me, I should go through a curious Roman style renovated underground tunnel, (so I can stay fresh he says) where a small synagogue happens to be there for centuries and whose blue, wood encarved Magen David motifs doors are today certainly locked. I absolutely have no idea how I am going to transit between the house of the Padillas, the Mizrahis and the Molinas.

It’s Friday night.  Since I am at the Juderia, after lighting my Shabbat candles, I could go to the service at a synagogue and then to the Casa de la Memoria Sefarad to watch today’s Flamenco performance of the Summer festival. I ask my Spanish – El Cid – butler- commander Xavier, about the directions to the synagogue I had heard was in Santa Cruz, close to the hotel; and the time of the service. Xavier answer is “Yes, actually Senorita is right,” he says. “There WAS a synagogue, but this was three thousands years ago. It eventually became a church, called Santa Maria Clara, very pretty Senorita, and if you still need to go, it would be my pleasure to walk you there.”

Reflecting with a kind of uncertainty, I find myself regarding the site of my religious observance. I decide to get out of the last courtyard of the twelve encountered from the Padillas house, including the subterranean tunnel to the reception. I finally see another taxi at the end of this oasis-like ghetto.

“Senor? Casa de la Memoria Sefaradi por favor.”

It all started in New York City.

A friend of mine from Brazil, a Tarot reader, reminded me while chatting on Skype that soon it would be the Gypsy festival. I searched nervously through the busy pages of the weekend section of the New York Times. Immediately, I found what I wanted, bought tickets on line, and rushed to the Lincoln Center where I watched the Albert Maysles music documentary in the style of Buena Vista Social Club, A Gypsy Caravan.

I was with a girlfriend from Brazil, a drama actress, and we both cried our hearts out watching the saga and the touching life stories of all the musicians of the joyful troupe during their world tour. They started in a small Romanian village, passing through Berlin and other European cities, India’s Rajasthan and desert, and finally ended in California and New York.

The next week, after spending two incredible hours in the West Village in the charming atmosphere of the vintage 1980′s theater, I went absolutely wild! Flamenco icon and world-renowned dancer Soledad Barrio drove me mad when she danced at my feet during her New York performance of  Noche Flamenca. As I was sitting right in front of the stage at the same eye level as hers, and crossing glances with her more than once, my heart could not stop pounding from such emotion, rage, seductive power and dangerously intense charisma. Tobi Tobias, journalist and critic from the Village Voice later said, “Impelled by will and imagination, Soledad turned herself into an engine of arousal and destruction.”

On my way back home I decide that I should book my flight to Seville before it’s too late. Do not ask me what it is too late for. Just book. After all, I must visit my family and it’s my mother’s birthday.

I am at the airport on my way to Malaga from Brussels. My mother secretly stashed two bottles of water in my Luis Vuitton backpack; she’s sure I will dehydrate after she saw on the news that the temperature in Andalusia is 120 degrees Fahrenheit. While I notice that the water made its way through my Spanish Passport, iPod with Paco De Lucia downloads, E-tickets, BlackBerry phone and hotel confirmations, I also notice two kids with caps almost coming out of the brilliant Mexican film-maker Alfonso Cuaron movie Y Tu Mama Tambien looking at my high heel sandals, or my knees, or maybe my short cargo skirt while I try to save the rest of the belongings in my overly hydrated bag. I know what they are thinking and my desire is to tell them that I watched the movie too, but fortunately their father arrived and yelled something in Spanish like a secret code, (as if for some reason he also watched the movie) and made them go furtively do something for their impatient mother, theoretically forgetting about my presence.

I am about to land. The view from the airplane window shows my mother was right. Looks like it’s really hot. I probably do not care. Taxi, please take me to where my origins await me.

“Senhor, are you sure your air conditioning works?”