Peña Flamenca la Maria at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum

Maestra Maria 'La Chacha' Bermudez and Flamenco! Santa Barbara Brought Andalucía to Santa Barbara Historical Museum

Two young dancers, still in costume from their Junior Spirit auditions, improvising to Bulerias. | Photo: Madeline Oaklander

Tucked away in the courtyard of the Covarrubias Adobe, inside the Santa Barbara Historical Museum, Flamenco! Santa Barbara hosts regular peñas flamencas as part of its education and outreach program. Led by world-renowned dancer Maria “La Chacha” Bermudez, with musicians Manuel Gutierrez (guitar), Pepele Mendez (singer), and Andres Vadin (guitar), these extended family gatherings offer a chance for everyone to experience the true flamenco spirit.

Dancer from Flamenco SB improvising to Bulerias | Photo: Madeline Oaklander

A peña (“pein-yah”) is an informal gathering dedicated to the celebration of flamenco, where musicians and dancers improvise together, and students learn how to improvise with musicians in an informal, supportive environment. The Flamenco! Santa Barbara website describes peñas as jam sessions. According to the website of the Instituto Andaluz del Flamenco, peñas play a vital role in preserving and promoting the art of flamenco, offering opportunities for artists to perform and share their passion with others. They also serve as grassroots gatherings for the next generation of flamenco dancers and singers to learn from the masters. According to Jose Velez, the Secretary General of Cultural Innovation and Museums in Andalucía, the birthplace of Flamenco, “without peñas, flamenco would not be in the place it occupies right now. In the peñas is where flamenco is shared [and] communicated; [it is] where the hobby is forged.”

Attending Peña Flamenca la Maria in Santa Barbara, one can understand why peñas are such a fundamental aspect of flamenco. It is in the peñas where the flamenco community gathers, shares, and nurtures its young. It is where everyone is part of a larger family.

Like many traditional music and dance styles from around the world, true flamenco is completely improvisational. The musicians improvise coplas (verses) in specific compas (rhythms) and palos (musical forms with a certain compositional structure), in which they sing about whatever moves them. As Bermudez, who was Master of Ceremonies, explained, “Whatever the singer feels like singing. They sing about life — places in Spain, where they grew up, what their mothers cooked, and a lot of heartbreak.”

In class, students learn technique and choreographies, but it is during the peñas that students learn the real art of flamenco: spontaneous improvisation, in the moment, with musicians, who are also improvising, in the moment.

“No matter who you are, if you can be open, you can get it. Because in flamenco, the heart is in the hand. Everybody’s onstage with their heart in their hand,” says Bermudez.

Maestra Maria “La Chacha” Bermudez improvises with a young student. | Photo: Madeline Oaklander

Senior student, still in costume from Spirit auditions, improvising to Bulerias | Photo: Madeline Oaklander

Flamenco has three components: cante (singing), toque (guitar playing), and baile (dance). These three components change “flavor” in the various palos. The palos that were performed at this peña included Tango, Bulerias, and Sevillanas. (Click here to learn more about the various palos and compas.

Peña Flamenca la Maria began with a tango, in 4/4 meter. Maestra Bermudez encouraged the students to begin palmas (rhythmic clapping), which they did, and kept up their palmas for each piece throughout the show. The first rows of chairs on either side of the dance floor were reserved for the students, and they all — from the youngest beginner to the most advanced — kept up palmas throughout the show.

The majority of the following pieces were in the Bulerias palo, where, Bermudez explained, the lyrics are joking and teasing. Performer Pepele Mendez sang about chicharones (deep fried pork rinds) at one point, and Bermudez explained that the word Bulerias comes from the word burla, which means “to joke.”

Bulerias is in a 12-beats-per-measure pattern and is one of the most complex palos, but the students kept up palmas perfectly! It seemed everyone enjoyed improvising to Bulerias. It was so sweet to see how Bermudez encouraged the smallest ones to get up and improvise with her.

Musicians (from right) Andres Vadin, Pepele Mendez, Manuel Gutierrez with Maestra Maria “La Chacha” Bermudez, and dancer Amanda Lucia Cuevas. | Photo: Madeline Oaklander

As the musicians continued to play, students got up, one after another, to improvise as the music moved them. If no one got up, Bermudez would motion to someone — no one could refuse their teacher!

Musicians Manuel Gutierrez and Pepele Mendez improvising. | Photo: Madeline Oaklander

Some of the girls were dressed in flamenco costumes, having just come from the first round of adjudications for the 2025 Spirit and Junior Spirit of Fiesta: the interview. I asked one of the Flamenco Moms why they had to be interviewed, and she explained it’s because whoever is chosen as Spirit and Junior Spirit, not only does a lot of performing during the year, but is also called upon to do a lot of public speaking.

And suddenly — what a treat — two of the musicians, Manuel Gutierrez and Pepele Mendez, got up to dance while Vadin played guitar and Bermudez sang.

Near the end of the performance, the musicians played Sevillanas (“sevi-yanas”), a lively dance in three-fourth (or six-eighths) tempo, which is danced in pairs. The Sevillanas consists of a set of four coplas, short pieces played in a sequence, each with a predictable musical pattern. As long as one knows this pattern, one can improvise with anyone. All the students, and some of the parents, joined in this Sevillanas party.

To get a taste of Peña Flamenca la Maria, please see my playlist of short video clips I took at the event on YouTube here.

Dancer improvising to Bulerias | Photo: Madeline Oaklander

Some Background on Flamenco

Designated as a UNESCO World Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2010, flamenco is believed to have originated with the Romani (Gitano) people who migrated from North India between the fifth and the 14th centuries, passing through Central Asia, the Middle East, the Balkan countries, and finally settling in southern Spain, in the region known as Andalucía. The famous 1993 film Latcho Drom (Safe Journey) chronicles the Romani people’s journey through the lens of music and dance. Starting at around 1:22.0 in the film, the journey arrives at a peña in southern Spain – exactly the sort of gathering that Flamenco! Santa Barbara organizes for our community.

Some say the birthplace of flamenco in Spain was Sevilla; others point to Jerez de la Frontera. Flamenco music is a rich tapestry of the cultures of Andalucia in the 15th century, with musical influences from the Islamic, Roma, Persian, and Sephardic traditions, as well as liturgical music of the Greek and Byzantine Churches. The style of singing that characterizes flamenco — that mournful, harsh, raspy style — sounds sad, even when the lyrics are playful, because it expresses the historic hardships experienced by the Gitano communities, who were always persecuted as outsiders wherever they lived. While everyone, at least in the northern hemisphere, knows about the Holocaust — the event that describes the genocide of six million East European Jews by Hitler before and during World War II — not many people have heard of the Porraimos: the genocide of as many as 500,000 European Romani people by Hitler at the same time. Knowing this makes the poignancy of the cante flamenco that much deeper.

Maestra Maria “La Chacha” Bermudez helps a young student improvise. | Photo: Madeline Oaklander
Senior student having fun, improvising to Bulerias. | Photo: Madeline Oaklander
One of the few male dancers in Flamenco SB improvising to Bulerias. | Photo: Madeline Oaklander

About Flamenco! Santa Barbara

Maria “La Chacha” Bermudez is the artistic director of Flamenco! Santa Barbara and Master of Ceremonies for the Peña Flamenca la Maria. Born in Los Angeles, she was officially named Flamenco Ambassador in 2022 by the city of Jerez de la Frontera, where she resided for many years. She has performed all over the world.

Flamenco! Santa Barbara was founded by the legendary Linda Vega, also a luminary on the world stage, who taught flamenco in Santa Barbara for 33 years, and birthed 36 Spirits and Junior Spirits of Fiesta. Vega retired in 2020, and turned over her studio to Bermudez, who previously taught flamenco in Jerez de la Frontera for more than 30 years. Bermudez now partners with Santa Barbara’s own legendary Timo Nuñez, who directs the Timo Nuñez Arte Flamenco Studio and dance company.

Flamenco! Santa Barbara is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and elevating the art of flamenco in Santa Barbara and beyond. They offer scholarships to local students, and sponsor musicians and dancers from Spain who give performances, master classes, and play music for dance classes. They also sponsor an artist-in-residence program and a variety of performances in town which replicate the authentic experiences of performances in Spain, including the peñas flamencas, and small theater experiences such as the Tablao Flamenco at the Alhecama Theater, SOhO Music Club, and the Santa Barbara Historical Museum. They also sponsor Flamenco Íntimo experiences in the Covarrubias Adobe (c. 1817) which replicate the origins of flamenco by the Gitanos of Andalucía.

Flamenco! Santa Barbara plays a major role in providing entertainment during the annual Old Spanish Days Fiesta, sponsoring artists who come from Spain to perform with local dancers and musicians at the many free venues during the week. You can see them at El Mercado de la Guerra, Paseo Nuevo, the Old Mission and, of course, during Las Noches de Ronda at the historic Santa Barbara Courthouse.

I have performed in Noches for the past decade and look forward to this annual event, when the Courthouse comes alive with the sounds of music and the jury rooms are filled with colorful costumes, petticoats, and laughter. Noches 2025 will begin on July 28, with the dress rehearsal and auditions for newcomers on the outdoor stage facing the Sunken Gardens. The performances will run from Thursday, July 31, through Saturday, August 2. See sbfiesta.org for the complete schedule of Old Spanish Days events.