December duende

Forget sleigh bells and reindeer hooves – in Santa Fe, the holidays arrive with the spirited sounds of flamenco guitar and passionate zapateado (footwork).

For over a decade, flamenco dancer and choreographer Mina Fajardo has presented a holiday concert at Teatro Paraguas with her husband, the renowned flamenco guitarist José Luis Valle Fajardo aka Chuscales, or Chusco for short. Compañía Chuscales and Mina Fajardo’s Holiday Flamenco 2025 begins on Friday, Dec. 19, and this year’s theme is “Holiday in Santa Fe.”

“Last year, we did ‘Holiday Flamenco: Memories of Granada,’ because Chusco comes from Granada (Spain). But this year, we wanted to do ‘Holiday in Santa Fe’ and bring in the culture of Santa Fe, because more than half of our students were born in Española or Santa Fe – almost everybody, except for me and Chusco,” Mina Fajardo said.

Chuscales grew up in the fabled Sacromonte caves of Granada, a centuries-old center of Spanish Roma culture, including flamenco. He learned guitar “naturally,” he said, not through formal classes but by watching his older relatives play.

“As a child, everyone in my family was an artist – singing, playing the guitar, dancing,” Chuscales said.

Mina Fajardo, on the other hand, grew up in Japan. She had always loved dancing, but her mother discouraged her from pursuing what she considered an impractical career and sent her to Hokkaido University to study medical technology instead. It was only after she graduated and began working at a hospital in Tokyo that her early passion for dance was reignited by a colon cancer patient who also happened to be a flamenco dancer. After undergoing an extensive surgery, the patient returned to dancing and invited Fajardo to her first post-surgery performance.

“I couldn’t believe it, and it made me cry so much, because she’d had a very heavy surgery, and I never imagined she was going to dance again,” she said.

It was Mina Fajardo’s first time experiencing flamenco.

“After the show, she asked me, ‘You dance classical ballet?’ She said, ‘In classical ballet, maybe you can only dance until you’re 27 or 28 years old. But with flamenco, you can dance until you’re 100,’” Mina Fajardo said.

Inspired by the dancer’s resilience and the possibility of a long career, Fajardo began taking flamenco classes the very next day. The rest, as they say, is history.

“From that moment until now, I’ve done 5,000 or 6,000 shows,” she said.

Chuscales and Mina Fajardo will be joined onstage by 11 dancers who have been studying with the couple at Moving Arts Española. The youngest is 8 years old and the oldest is in her late 60s – a testament to the truth that anyone can dance flamenco, regardless of age.

One of the dancers, Alandra López, had a neurological impairment that had kept her from walking for many years, let alone dancing. She turned to flamenco as a form of physical therapy.

“Now, after 12 years of dancing – or dance therapy – she can do a solo by herself,” Mina Fajardo said.

The concert’s opening number, “Calle del Aire” (“Street of the Air”) is a lively fandango, and the program continues with flamenco interpretations of classic Christmas carols, including “Silent Night” and “Carol of the Bells.”

Although Chuscales has performed at huge venues, such as Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles and Lincoln Center in New York City, he said he prefers the intimacy of Teatro Paraguas. Mina Fajardo agrees.

“I love a big stage, but you don’t see the footwork or the dancers’ faces from so far away,” Mina Fajardo said.

Teatro Paraguas’ 55-seat venue lets audiences see and appreciate the dancers’ complex footwork and subtle facial expressions, which are important parts of the flamenco experience.

“It’s our favorite theater,” Mina Fajardo said.

The Fajardos’ holiday flamenco concert has become an annual tradition for many New Mexican families.

“Santa Fe is a town of flamenco,” Mina Fajardo said. “We are here because we love flamenco, and we love Santa Fe.”