For the past three years, Flamenco instructor Angela Arteritano has traveled off and on to Spain, learning new dance techniques and staying up to date on cultural trends.<\/p>\n
On one of those trips, she instead found a tradition to bring home to Vacaville.<\/p>\n
Later this month will be the second annual production of Arteritano Flamenco Company\u2019s \u201cCarmen,\u201d a family-friendly Flamenco retelling of the classic opera. It\u2019s a show that Arteritano hopes to perform every year. \u201cWe want \u2018Carmen\u2019 to be a staple in our community,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n
Arteritano\u2019s company is the only accredited Flamenco training program in California, and she hopes to shine a spotlight on the highly cultural dance. \u201cCarmen\u201d may be the way to do just that.<\/p>\n After seeing a Flamenco production of \u201cCarmen\u201d in Spain, Arteritano thought \u201cThis would be perfect for Vacaville.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOne way or another, a lot of audiences already know \u2018Carmen\u2019 and are familiar, at least with the character,\u201d she said. Even if they don\u2019t know the story, many recognize the signature red dress.<\/p>\n Arteritano hopes that familiarity with the character and the music will help attract more community members to the show and introduce more people to Flamenco.<\/p>\n However, \u201cCarmen,\u201d is not a story for every age. Laced with romance and violence, Arteritano had her work cut out for her to turn the show into a family-friendly affair. In order to do so, she changed Carmen\u2019s main conflict, love for a man, Don Jos\u00e9, into love for her culture.<\/p>\n \u201cI took the elements of the character, her strength, her freedom, and decided to take that further,\u201d said Arteritano. The character of Don Jos\u00e9, Carmen\u2019s lover, is changed to Do\u00f1a Josephina, Carmen\u2019s mother. \u201cWe go back in time to see Carmen\u2019s earlier years as a young dancer falling in love with the culture,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The updated version of the show features two Carmens, one a young dancer. \u201cIt\u2019s about her belonging to her community and finding her strength to those connections and through the people that she comes in contact with,\u201d said Arteritano.<\/p>\n By changing the production in this way, it allows for the introduction of more Flamenco elements, and this year they are incorporating even more than last time.<\/p>\n Castanets, mant\u00f3n and peric\u00f3n are all new additions this year. Since Arteritano\u2019s company has only been in operation for a couple years, her dancers are hard at work learning as much about Flamenco as they can without a large background in the art form.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot more Flamenco this year, there\u2019s a lot more rhythm and footwork and a lot more advanced choreography because the students have been growing through the program, which is great,\u201d says Arteritano.<\/p>\n \u201cCarmen\u201d will feature Arteritano dancing herself as the adult Carmen and 12 of her students. Five of her students are beginners, with less than a year of experience, and the rest are company members that have been working with Arteritano Flamenco Company for the past two years. The student\u2019s ages range from 9 years old up to adulthood.<\/p>\n Arteritano says she is excited to once again share this production with the community. \u201cI want audiences to connect with their purpose when they see this production and just grow together and enjoy this wonderful culture,\u201d said Arteritano.<\/p>\n When Arteritano first brought Flamenco to Vacaville, it was something new to a lot of people. For those who don\u2019t know a lot about the dance, Arteritano wants you to get involved.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t have to be from Spain to be able to dance Flamenco,\u201d she says. \u201cEverybody has a way of expressing, because even the masters nowadays tell you it\u2019s a way of living. It\u2019s a culture, it\u2019s a community that we create together.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.timesheraldonline.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For the past three years, Flamenco instructor Angela Arteritano has traveled off and on to Spain, learning new dance techniques and staying up to date on cultural trends. On one of those trips, she instead found a tradition to bring home to Vacaville. Later this month will be the second annual production of Arteritano Flamenco […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2009709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[22220,22691,21741,22034,21818,343508,343509,332338,24047,22482,332339,332340],"class_list":["post-2009708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-arts","tag-california","tag-entertainment","tag-events","tag-lifestyle","tag-north-bay","tag-northern-california","tag-solano-county","tag-theater","tag-things-to-do","tag-vacaville","tag-vallejo"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Bringing-Flamenco-to-Vacaville-with-\u2018Carmen-\u2013-Times-Herald-Online.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2009708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2009709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2009708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2009708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2009708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"From](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.timesheraldonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/VAL-L-CARMEN-0911-02.jpg?fit=620%2C9999px&ssl=1\")
Castanets are small handheld percussion instruments, which Flamenco dancers use while performing. A mant\u00f3n is a shawl and a peric\u00f3n is a Flamenco folding fan, both of which are also worn and moved during a performance.<\/p>\nIf you go \u2026<\/h4>\n
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