Deanna Blacher

From 1952 to 1956, I was a student of that great pioneer of Spanish Dance in Cape Town, Elizabeth Coombes, who introduced me and a generation of dancers, to the intricacies, technique, and styles of Spanish Dance. We were expected to be at least proficient if not perfect in all aspects of the genre, whether it was Soleares, Seguidillas, or Jota. This is Deanna Dances.

Then, unlike our modern times, there were very clear distinctions between the styles of dance, unlike the stylistic mix-and-match approach of many current choreographies.

Learning to play the castanets to an advanced degree was a very necessary technical skill to acquire.

To that end, part of the class was always dedicated to castanet practice.

Miss Coombes would seat us in a semi-circle on the floor and she would set various rhythms for us to play together.

Then she would randomly point to us and we would have to continue playing alone.

I dreaded those particular sections of the class, the rest of which I loved and immediately took to without any difficulty.

I was always the one left pathetically plonking as best I could, struggling with the playing of a complete caretilla without missing the ring finger every time!

Once, as an 18-year-old student in London at Elsa Brunelleschi’s Academy, I was walking down Charing Cross Rd one Sunday and passed Chester’s, a well-known London publisher and supplier of sheet music worldwide.

In the window display, there was a set of six quite chunky books featuring the complete sonatas of the 18th-century Spanish composer Padre Antonio Soler.

Coincidentally, that year – 1959 – London was host to several Spanish dance companies including Pilar Lopez, Carmen Anaya, Jose Greco, and the great Antonio.

Antonio brought to that London season a Spanish ballet entitled Sonatas to the very same but carefully selected Sonatas of Padre Antonio Soler, which featured the Escuela bolera style of classical Spanish dance of the Baroque era in Spain together with very elevated use of the castanets.

Whilst the company’s interpretation was innovative and skilfully developed and performed, one couldn’t help thinking that these Sonatas would be perfect for performance in a castanet recital format without the dance.

I felt that the musical line could be interpreted more meaningfully in relation to the tempi

and volume without the constraints of the dance choreography.

It was to take a full 10 years before I was able to bring my ideas to fruition.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *