Waking up early to get ready for the show. Dressing up in a beautiful, blue skintight dress, ready to portray elegance along with black heels to zapatear to the rhythm of live Spanish music.
Placing red and white flowers in your low bun coupled with silver earrings as your accessories. Then, accentuating all your facial features to demonstrate your exuberance with flamboyant red lips.
This is psychology and dance senior Elizabeth Stamatio’s routine as she prepares for the most passionate moment of her life as a Flamenco dancer.
Stamatio has been a Flamenco dancer in the Ballet Español at UTRGV since she first joined in 2016 as a freshman. At 2 years old, she started lessons at La Escala dance studio in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, where she learned jazz, hip hop and ballet, among others. She had never danced Flamenco before coming to UTRGV.
Stamatio said that in the Ballet Español company, they practice different Spanish dances of Flamenco infused with ballet. These dances involve a lot of footwork, or zapateado. They must control upper body movements, count steps and concentrate on the music.
The Ballet Español will have four performances Thursday through Saturday in the Performing Arts Complex on the Edinburg campus. The company has been preparing the presentation since last semester, incorporating dances such as “La Boda de Luis Alonso,” “Bulerías,” and the classic “Sevillanas.”
In “La Boda de Luis Alonso,” or “The Wedding of Luis Alonso,” Stamatio will portray the bride. She will wear a white dress while the bridesmaids will dress in sleeveless gold-and-black dresses.
“In the [Ballet Español] company, she plays a lot of main roles because of her technique and because she has the leadership to go ahead and do, like, solo events or pieces,” said mathematics and dance senior Eduardo Flores.
Flores will portray the groom in “La Boda.”
Stamatio described what a performance day is like. They have two performances: one is for children in which they conduct a question-and-answer session and get asked about their costumes and their motivation to dance Flamenco.
“Normally, I would wake up super early like at 7, 6:30 [a.m.],” she said. “I would take a shower [and] do my hair. It’s easier to do my hair and then I would head up to the [Performing Arts Complex].”
She arrives at the Performing Arts Complex for their 9 a.m. call and continues to put on her makeup and warms up with the team before the show starts at 10 a.m.
“We try to hype up each other a lot [because] there’s a point where we’re, like, super tired but we know, like, ‘it’s showtime,’” Stamatio said, adding that it helps calm their nerves before the show.
The second performance is later in the evening. Their call is at 5 p.m. to have enough time before the show starts at 7:30 p.m.
“I’ve been dancing my whole life, but it still feels like before that curtain opens and you’re, like, there on stage and they’re calling, like, ‘Dancers ready, dancers ready!’ but I’m, like, ‘No, wait! I’m not ready,’” Stamatio said, adding that she always feels butterflies since she has always been passionate about dance. “The curtain opens up and it’s like you transform, like you enter a whole different zone.”
She tries not to make eye contact with the public, especially her family, to avoid feeling more nervous. Instead, she looks to the lights and always wears a big and blissful smile on her face.
“For those three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, it’s just about the dance, it’s just about your body, it’s just about doing that moment in space, like, with the music, with yourself, with your partner, with your group,” she said about how liberating it feels to dance and forget about everything else. “For me, it’s just, like, I guess, sharing the passion with someone else and like being free together, like doing what we love, that’s just, like, the best thing.”
After they finish their performance, the Ballet Español begins preparing for the next semester’s show. By then, Stamatio will have to learn all the dances, footwork, handwork and formations, as she is the rehearsal assistant to Ballet Español’s Director Sonia Chapa.
“I selected her because she always does everything to the best of her ability and tries to perfect herself and everything she learns,” Chapa said. “Seeing her passion and her dedication, I decided to have her as my rehearsal assistant.”
She founded the Ballet Español company in 2014. The company now has 16 members, 12 women and 4 men. She is in the process of creating a Flamenco studies minor at UTRGV.
Ballet Español will perform for the public at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday. It will perform at 10 a.m. Friday for public schools. All performances will be held in the UTRGV Performing Art Complex on the Edinburg campus.
For tickets to the Thursday and Saturday performances, call 665-2230. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for senior citizens, children and UTRGV students with a valid ID.
