Year: 2015-2016
DanceForce Member: Carlota Santana
Artists: Leslie Roybal, Carlota Santana
Community Partners: Lincoln Center Bruno Walter Auditorium
Audience: 415
County: New York

Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana and the Center for Flamenco Arts presented the New York State Flamenco Certamen at the Bruno Walter Auditorium at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts on Friday, October 9, 2015. Now in its second year, this unique competition brought emerging talent to the public eye while fostering the continued development and exposure of the Flamenco art form throughout New York State. A second evening event was also offered at the Bruno Walter Auditorium on Thursday, October 17, 2015, which included a talk by Center Director Leslie Roybal, accompanied by a video history of Flamenco, audience participation, and performances by last year’s NYS Certamen participants. This project supported Flamenco Vivo’s goal of broadening outreach to the entire community, making the Flamenco art form a part of mainstream dance in the USA. Based on our aim to spread dance throughout New York State, a winning artist, Amilia Hernandez, will engage in outreach events with the Emma Willard School in Troy. She will give a dance class to the students and speak with the Spanish classes about the history and culture of the Flamenco art form. We’ve been in contact with Barbara Mcgee, the head of the dance program at Emma Willard. This engagement has been facilitated by Kim Engel.

The Certamen was announced through our social media forums (Facebook/Twitter), digital marketing, NY cultural publicity platforms, and fliers. Eligible applicants submitted a statement of intent, a CV resume and short video clip. 10 finalists were chosen out of 23 applicants and they presented a solo work for final judging. This event was open to the public. The finalists were judged by a panel included Gregory Cary, Barbara Dickinson, Susana Di Palma, and Juan Manuel Prieto. The Center for Flamenco Arts provided each finalist with 8 hours of studio space as well as a guitarist and singer for their final rehearsal hour. Finalists had 1 hour of coaching time with Associate Artistic Director Antonio Hidalgo.