promoting the history and culture of flamenco

Zoë Whittle is a writer, dancer, artist, and aspiring librarian. She has been dancing Flamenco for over twelve years and has performed with Flamenco Youth de Santa Fe, Compañía Chuscales y Mina Fajardo, and the Grinnell College Dance Ensemble. She started teaching private lessons when she was in high school and has also worked with Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana in New York City. Zoë is excited to be teaching dance again and to be working with Emi and her incredible team.

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Tito Rios is an acoustic guitarist currently living in Santa Fe, NM. With over 41 years of playing guitar, his playing is articulate, clean and expressive. His rich and unique style is the result of his love for music from many different cultures.

He is a soloist, and he collaborates with musicians in a variety of ensemble configurations. He plays concerts, ceremonies, background music, and dance instrumental or sung music.

His experience extends into the disciplines of composing, arranging, and transcribing.

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Marco de Waart is a Flamenco guitarist living in Santa Fe, NM. Marco has lived in Santa Fe since the mid 1980’s, having come from New York City where he received a Bachelor’s of Music from the Mannes College of Music.  He has a diverse musical resume including having played with the Santa Fe Opera Company. His passion for Flamenco has prevailed and has captured his focused attention in recent years.  His love for Flamenco began in many travels and living in Spain as a child, and Marco has attended many extraordinary performances in NYC by the likes of Paco de Lucia and Mario Escudero. He is familiar with many different styles of Flamenco guitar ranging from Paco de Lucia, Sabicas, Moraito, Juan Serrano, Miguel Angel Cortes and Juan Martin which makes him a flexible musician and able to adapt to the many different styles of Flamenco guitar. 

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Gabriel Lautaro Osuna, was born in northern New Mexico and began playing guitar and singing in church at a young age. His first guitar teacher was local legend Cipriano Vigil. He later pursued the study and performance of flamenco guitar in Spain and abroad. Osuna has performed extensively in theaters and in tablaos, including a season at the gypsy caves in Granada. He participates regularly in the “Festival Flamenco Internacionál” in Albuquerque New Mexico. Gabriel is featured on Dezeo, a Ladino album by Consuelo Luz. He has played at the “World Expo” in Hannover, Germany, and at the “Saint-Florent-le-Vieil Les Orientales” Festival in France as well as at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.  He performed with Placido Domingo at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles and at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. In Los Angeles Gabriel performed extensively with local bands and flamenco groups and was a regular participant in the “Subsuelo” hip hop crew. Presently Gabriel is working on recording projects with several artists. He plays guitar in “Revozo” with Vicente Griego and accompanies “Emi Arte Flamenco” dance company based in Santa Fe. Most recently he helped form “Rio Vista” a local Latin Jazz trio. His genres include Flamenco, Latin Jazz, World Music, Blues and Rock.

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From Dixon/Embudo, NM, Vicente is devoted to Cante Flamenco. In 1999, toured internationally with José Greco II and mentored by Alfonso Gabarri, “El Veneno”. Griego is a pupil of guitarist (Jose Valle, Chuscales) and singer, José Fernández. Griego performs with Yjastros: The American Flamenco Repertory Company, and EmiArteFlamenco. He is lead singer in the Rumba Flamenca band, ReVoZo. Griego’s a faculty member in the department of Theatre and Dance at the University of New Mexico

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La Emi began her Flamenco journey at the age of four and has emerged as a teacher and performer acclaimed for her artistry and craft.

La Emi started studying Flamenco with the Maria Benitez Institute for Spanish Arts (ISA) when she was four years old and began working with the Institute’s youth company, Flamenco’s Next Generation at the age of 10. Just two years later when she was only 12 – she started teaching within the Northern New Mexico public school
system. She began teaching for Moving Arts Española in 2005 and ISA in 2006.

As a performer, La Emi has danced on stages from New Mexico to Spain, appearing in the production of “El Pintor” at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque (2010), Entreflamenco, the company of Antonio Granjero and Estefania Ramirez, at the Lodge at Santa Fe (2011, 2012 and 2015), Juan Siddi Flamenco Santa Fe (2013, 2014 and 2016) and Compañia Chuscales y Mina Fajardo (2010-2014).

La Emi began her Flamenco journey at the age of four and has emerged as a teacher and performer acclaimed for her artistry and craft.

La Emi started studying Flamenco with the Maria Benitez Institute for Spanish Arts (ISA) when she was four years old and began working with the Institute’s youth company, Flamenco’s Next Generation at the age of 10. Just two years later when she was only 12 – she started teaching within the Northern New Mexico public school
system. She began teaching for Moving Arts Española in 2005 and ISA in 2006.

As a performer, La Emi has danced on stages from New Mexico to Spain, appearing in the production of “El Pintor” at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque (2010), Entreflamenco, the company of Antonio Granjero and Estefania Ramirez, at the Lodge at Santa Fe (2011, 2012 and 2015), Juan Siddi Flamenco Santa Fe (2013, 2014 and 2016) and Compañia Chuscales y Mina Fajardo (2010-2014).

In 2011, La Emi was nominated and selected as one of the 12 young and emerging artists in Pasatiempo, and she received the 2012 Santa Fe Mayor’s Melissa Engestrom Youth Artist Award for Excellence in the Arts. 

Meet our instructors who teach in our Residency Program

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