Cactus Language Blog

Cactus sponsors Flamenco Event at Brighton Fringe Festival!

Posted by Sarah under Cactus Languages Abroad, Cactus TEFL, Cactus Tailormade, Language Courses New York, Language Courses UK, Learning a language, Press Release, Spanish

Cactus made its first appearance in the Brighton Fringe Festival this weekend! Flamenco Flow had its two final ‘Flamenco con Fusion’ shows on Sunday 11th May - both a huge success - and, as sponsors, it was great to see our new banners on stage standing tall and proud. My work remit stretched to one dress change, handing out flyers for the Cactus Fringe events and even selling CDs!

Flamenco Flow consists of Ricardo Garcia on guitar playing a selection of his own compositions with various guest dancers. The flamenco dancer for the two performances this weekend was Ana Dueñas Leon and she was stunning – great dancing, full of the passion and tension that is so exciting about flamenco, along with her own natural beauty and a fantastic dress! Ana runs flamenco classes in Brighton and Horsham so it was great to make a new contact too. I am tempted to sign up for some classes myself. I love the ferocity of some of the steps along with the simmering anticipation and poses involved. It is a powerful and empowering dance for a woman I would say…and she made it look so easy. Ana was joined by a breakdancer for the ‘con fusion’ part – I didn’t catch his name but it really is a great fusion of sounds and movement to see breakdancing done to souped up funky live Spanish guitar music. The ‘dance off’ between the two style of dancers and man against the woman sees flamenco as the winner…but it is a fun battle.

I felt proud as Julie Gunn, Ricardo’s manager, talked about Cactus on stage e.g. ‘Brighton based company…providing Spanish classes in the evenings here in Brighton along with arranging Spanish language learning holidays throughout Spain and South America‘, and of course she mentioned our Spanish and Flamenco activity packages for both a physical and cerebral experience. Also, what better way to learn about a country’s culture than through communication of voice and body. I am used to reading and writing about our language courses abroad, via our websites, but it was a new experience to hear someone talking about our courses and holidays to a live audience! It was brilliant! I felt like a proud parent – haha!

Flamenco Flow are now off to Orlando Fringe to perform there. They have seven dates there and have a good following at this festival. Check it out if you are in this area in May. After Orlando they will be in New York for a couple of days, so they will have a chance to meet up with Rich Ambler, the owner of Cactus, who now lives there and heads our New York office. Maybe they will be able to introduce him to some new Spanish haunts in one of the neighbourhoods.

I first met Ricardo and Julie after seeing their show in the Brighton Festival Fringe 2007 and, after much talking and emailing between our own respective ‘normal’ workloads and lifestyles, we have finally managed to pull our sponsorship relationship together. I think that Cactus and Flamenco Flow do have a synergy and cross-over in our outlook and energy. Their ‘Flamenco con Fusion’ was the inspiration for me to contact them – the two cultures of breakdance and flamenco reminded me of Cactus’ long Spanish history. We have been offering a wealth of opportunities in Spanish language learning such as Spanish language holidays worldwide, in-company language training, evening courses, TEFL courses in Spain, etc. for almost 10 years, and more recently have opened our office in New York to start offering evening courses in North America. The fusion of our history and our future together. We are learning from our expansion and are enjoying the fusion of the American and European attitudes and outlooks within our working day.

Germaine Broadbent, Sales Director…or if you were at the show in the evening, The Girl in the Silver Dress…

Tags:Brighton Festival Fringe, dance, flamenco, language holidays, spain, Spanish