2021-2022 Boston Dancemakers Resident

Artist Statement

Laura Sánchez is an award-winning flamenco artist, creator, choreographer and educator originally from Cádiz, Spain. She began her flamenco education as a child and received professional training from the Dance Conservatory of Madrid. Laura holds a Professional Certificate in Expressive Arts Therapies from Lesley University where she developed an emerging therapeutic dance practice, Expressive Flamenco©. She facilitates workshops, presents this work internationally and continues to serve annually as Guest Professor for the Lesley University Expressive Therapies Master’s Program. Her most recent research work was published at the Journal of the American Dance Therapy Association in 2021.

Laura actively performs as soloist in flamenco venues in the Eastern U.S., and placed 3rd at the 2016 Flamenco Certamen USA, an international competition that takes place in NYC annually. She works as independent choreographer for organizations including Boston College of Fine Arts, Massachusetts Government, Bridgewater University, and Kingston Theater. Laura works as independent producer and has presented several flamenco shows over the past few years in Massachusetts. In her last production Flamenco at Starlight she brought the flamenco community back together to perform for the first time in Cambridge since Covid-19.

During the pandemic she created an award-winning short film called AFTER DARK to tell the resilience stories of a community affected by the Covid-19 global pandemic. She has been granted with the prestigious Live Arts Boston grant from the Boston Foundation in 2021 and was honored to be a member of Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana Professional Consorcio Flamenco, a group dedicated to growing flamenco on the national stage in 2020.

Project Description

AFTER DARK is a multimodal live production that combines flamenco with poetry, visual art, drama and creative expression to create awareness about discrimination and mental health during Covid-19. This project is based on my personal story as a flamenco artist, woman, mother, hispanic immigrant and trauma survivor, who in the midst of losing myself during quarantine, found hope in the arts. While we all may be experiencing the same trauma, it is affecting each of us differently in unimaginable ways, and this production aims to provide a healing opportunity for the Boston Community.