The Flamenco Law is very close to becoming a reality and one of its key objectives is driving the jondo art in teaching. Flamenco is a fundamental art both in Spanish culture more generally and particularly in Andalusia, but it is covered very little within education and nearly always in the form of a theoretical plan. For this reason, the bailaora Laura Bohórquez is launching Educaflamenco, a project with the key objective to help and share knowledge and studies about education and flamenco with other teachers, as well as to offer resources to achieve meaningful, quality learning with children.

The idea of Educaflamenco is to make this art a unique and comprehensive tool for the integral development of pupils from an early age. The platform believes that flamenco allows pupils’ memory capacity to develop through the knowledge of words, sounds, movements and characteristic songs. It also increases the ability to concentrate and allows the development of creativity to promotes creative development. Not to mention it increases pupils’ flexibility, strength and stamina and, from the age of three, helps to develop coordination, alignment and body positioning.

“Ultimately, aside from movement practice, flamenco in the classroom provides personal and social autonomy, boosts creativity, imagination and the pupils enjoy it, contributing to the holistic development of their personalities” explains Laura Bohórquez. “Educaflamenco wants to promote exposure to flamenco from infancy. Not only teaching the technique that comes with this art, but also doing it in a fun way, creating unique resources and materials to pass on passion and love for flamenco to pupils” continues Bohórquez.

 The project is aimed at all dance and infant school teachers who:

• Would like to innovate infant education
• Lack resources as an educator to apply in the classroom
• Like flamenco and want to incorporate it in the classroom
• Feel that at their dance school the children are disinterested in flamenco
• Wish to teach flamenco through a playful and effective methodology
• Believe that learning needs a change
• Consider flamenco a useful tool for the complete development of pupils
• Would like to share resources and learning materials with a community of flamenco and education enthusiasts

“As teachers, we are tasked with spreading our culture and institutions must offer basic flamenco training so that it can be transmitted with respect and knowledge from the classroom, moving away from clichés because flamenco is so much more than a frilly costume” concludes the founder of Educaflamenco.

About Laura Bohórquez, founder of Educaflamenco

Laura Bohórquez is a bailaora, certified by the Conservatorio Profesional de Danza de Sevilla (Seville Professional Conservatoire of Dance) and specialised in dance pedagogy at the Conservatorio Superior de Danza de Málaga (Malaga Higher Conservatoire of Dance), receiving honours in the application of the Montessori methodology to flamenco for very young children. In 2019, she belonged to the inaugural year of the Masters of Research and Analysis of Flamenco at the University of Cádiz, receiving recognition for her innovative proposed methodology in her Master’s Thesis.

Currently, she is teaching flamenco dance classes in the Escuela Municipal de Música de Guillena (the Guillena Municipal Music School, Seville) for the third consecutive year and has created the project EducaFlamenco with the goal of spreading the word and helping other teachers to bring flamenco into the classroom in a fun and playful way.

Translation: Lauren Bleakley