Flamenco queen

Flamenco is a proud Spanish dance, and Earl Haig graduate Yana Maizel is bringing her unique take on the tradition to the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts on Nov. 8 and 9.

Maizel’s flair for the dramatic began when she was a theatre major at the Claude Watson School for the Arts. She performed in plays throughout high school, and in her last year, along with friend Evan Brooker, founded the one-act play festival that is still an annual event at Claude Watson.

“Students submitted one-act plays, and we chose four or five of them,” she explains. “We had auditions, we chose directors, then the directors chose actors. We tried to do something professional even though we were in school,” Maizel says.

Acting was her passion, but the program also opened her up to other artistic mediums, particularly dance. But it wasn’t until years later that she fell in love with flamenco.

After high school, she attended the University of Toronto, which took her on a third-year study abroad program to Spain. Once there, a fellow student took her to her first flamenco concert.

“I fell off my chair. It was really powerful,” she says. “That was the moment where I thought that if I had one dream it would be to be able to do this.”

So she did. She signed up for flamenco classes right away. Her strong sense of rhythm helped her master the dance quickly, and before long she was performing for audiences in Spain and France.

Then, one day, an old acquaintance called her and asked her to do a 20-minute piece for an international dance festival she was starting in Paris. As Maizel started to choreograph the piece, it began to take on a life of its own, and soon she realized it couldn’t be contained in 20 minutes. The result is My Name Is Not Carmen!, a fusion of theatre, dance, poetry and music that tells the story of her journey from Russia (Maizel was born in St. Petersburg) to Canada, to Spain and ultimately to France.

The show deals with the issue of identity — Maizel has experienced and adopted so many different nationalities and cultures.

When news of the successful show travelled back to Toronto, she was invited home to showcase My Name Is Not Carmen!

“I’m totally nervous and excited to bring it to Toronto,” she says.

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