MY SPANISH HEART
Charles Minsky on the heat of a moment.
Photography by Charles Minsky“Hands are everything in flamenco,” says Charles Minsky. Well, almost everything. Dropping in on a dance studio while on holiday in Madrid, the photographer was transfixed by what he encountered: 30 bailaoras working up a sweat, pouring their souls into their art. “And the rhythms they makes through their feet—it’s very dramatic and quite beautiful. I tried to capture that—their hands, their feet, the way they hold their bodies. The heat in the room was staggering.” It was the ’70s, Minsky’s first trip to Spain, and the studio he happened upon, Amor de Dios, founded in 1953, remains among the most venerated in the country. “The instructor was a fire-eater!” Minsky recalls, “Relentless, ferocious, fearless! He would yell, laugh, cajole—whatever it took.” A cinematographer by profession (Pretty Woman, The Producers), Minsky spent a month documenting the flamenco world. Then he stored the images away, only to happen upon them 35 years later. It was a powerful moment of self-discovery. “What I saw in them was myself looking at dance for the first time.” The resulting body of work, “Corazon: Charles Minksy, Flamenco,” goes on view August 6 at Patty Look Lewis Gallery (pattylooklewis.com) •
Santa Barbara Magazine
By Trish Reynales. All rights reserved.
