In a studio with awkwardly patched floors, reached after riding in a wheezing, ancient elevator and winding through a labyrinth of halls in the decidedly funky Flatiron Building in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood, seven women of varying ages and body types are learning the intricacies of the art of flamenco.
Standing before a row of mirrors that look as though they started life on closet doors, the women practice turning and curving their hands in exercises that seem minimalist, but that are an important aspect of the flamenco art: “Turn in, stretch, turn out,” orders their teacher, Polley Cosgrove, a k a Poli, clad in a leotard and flounced black rehearsal skirt, long chestnut hair falling almost to her waist.
“Curl your fingers; do each one separately. Don’t forget the index finger–it’s the last movement, and the one the audience will see. Do it all in one flowing movement.”
Fourteen arms go up and down, copying the teacher, with varying degrees of grace. There are two complete beginners tonight, one of whom showed up in sneakers instead of the hard-heeled shoes necessary for the foot-stomping staccato that characterizes this Gypsy-flavored art form.
As the class progresses, Poli charms them, cajoles them, offers a running history of flamenco, tells them both what to do and what to avoid: “Never stamp straight down; that’s called `killing spiders,’ and it hurts your back and your teeth. Approach the floor from an angle.”
Soon they’re all stamping along with Poli, a booming volley that must surely be knocking down plaster below. By the end of the lesson, even the beginners are moving with greater grace, confidence and obvious enjoyment; they both sign up for more lessons.
Fifteen years ago, she led two lives. By day, she was a computer programmer named Polley Cosgrove working in downtown Chicago; by night, she was the fiery flamenco dancer La Poli performing in clubs. But balancing those lives was difficult, and flamenco took a back seat to the realities of the workaday world.
After the deaths of her sister and a much-loved grandmother and a divorce, Cosgrove took a six-month timeout to decide where her life was heading. She went back to Spain and took some classes. She decided it was time to get back to flamenco–full time.
Cosgrove, 38, had begun studying modern dance at age 4. A dancer with DuPage Ballet, a regional company, at 12, she went to Boston Conservatory to study Spanish dance with Nana Lorca, the wife of famed flamenco artist Jose Greco, at 16. She soon joined Greco’s troupe for a North American tour, replacing a dancer who’d fallen on the first ice she’d ever seen and broken an ankle. At 17, Cosgrove went to Spain to dance in Greco’s company and study at the source.
After four years, she came home and earned a degree in math and computer science from DePaul University. She worked as a computer programmer and then as a telecommunications analyst, dancing in clubs and with the Latino Chicago Theater Company, among other groups.
Then, last year, she hung up her business suits and opened her own studio, Dance Arts, which now offers flamenco guitar lessons as well as dance classes for men and women.
As Poli Reyes (Reyes is a family name), she has built a following. In addition to teaching, she dances two nights a week in tapas restaurants.
Unlike ballet, where career choices have to be made in early adolescence and most dancers are looking for occupational alternatives by the age of 30 or so, the flamenco dancer’s art improves with age and experience.
“When I was dancing in my teens, I was considered a baby, a beginner artist,” explains Cosgrove. “I was technically competent, and I was viewed as having talent, as coming along–but not as a full-fledged artist, just because of my age and experience. The flamenco dancer doesn’t hit her stride until she’s in her 30s or 40s, and flamenco dancers and musicians perform until they’re in their 80s. When they do retire, it’s usually because of age-related problems like losing their eyesight; they stay in good shape!”
Flamenco dancers need not be short and sylph-like, she says. And it’s never too late to start.
“(Flamenco) is very good for you, physically and spiritually,” Cosgrove explains. “It acknowledges the shadows as well as the lights in human experience. You’re allowed to have the blues, to express sadness as well as happiness in flamenco. You don’t bottle it up; you get rid of it. Flamenco is a way to express the things that are beyond words.”
Flamenco is native to southern Spain, and practiced primarily by Gypsies.
“It’s very, very ancient,” notes Cosgrove, “and it’s a philosophy and lifestyle as well as dance and music, an old-fashioned philosophy of respecting the feelings of others and trying to enjoy life.
“It’s not the Hollywood version. It’s not flamenco to play mind games, or to get into fights. There is flamenco poetry and prose, and a flamenco expression of Roman Catholicism that’s pretty fervent and intense. Flamenco is used to celebrate religious festivals; Holy Week is a seven-day, no-sleeping affair, a continuous Christian flamenco celebration of Easter.”
Most flamenco instructors in the States teach choreography, but Cosgrove stipulates that she teaches characteristic movements.
“I teach the structure of flamenco, so that my students can eventually improvise within that structure, like true flamenco artists, instead of just learning steps by rote,” she says.
Cindy Rosario, a elementary school teacher who lives in the Lakeview neighborhood, was looking into flamenco when she discovered Dance Arts. “Poli is a wonderful teacher,” she says. “She teaches us the pieces and we put them together; before you know it, you’re doing whole dances. The more you learn, the more fun it is.” Rosario, who is neither short nor sylph-like, is proof that flamenco can be for everyone; she’s the most graceful and interesting to watch of the students in this night’s classes. Most of the students in this group are women, but there’s also an all-men’s class.
For her part, Cosgrove has no regrets about giving up the corporate world: “When I went back to dancing I never looked back. I’ve never been happier.”
She enjoys teaching as much as she does dancing, and she’s hoping to make that her focus, with the goal of setting up a not-for-profit organization to spread the word about flamenco in the U.S.
“A Spanish writer named Luis Antonio Vega wrote, `Flamenco is the means through which man reaches God without the intervention of saints or angels.’ I want to help bring out that complex world view to a wider audience.”
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Dance Arts, 1579 N. Milwaukee Ave., 312-489-0828. La Poli performs with guitarist Gregory Wolfe at Barcelona’s Chicago location, 111 W. Hubbard St., 312-467-1091, on Wednesday evenings and its Evanston location, 1615 Chicago Ave., 847-866-9900, on Thursdays.
