SF Flamenco Productions

SF FLAMENCO PRODUCTIONS
Executive Director, Jason “El Pintor” Engelund bio

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA'S
ONLINE COMMUNITY CENTER AND MAGAZINE

ONLINE COMMUNITY CENTER
SF Flamenco works to support the flamenco arts, the well being of flamenco artists and the understanding and sustainability of flamenco culture in public life. SF Flamenco collaborates with local flamenco artists, supporters and aficionados to create a nondiscriminatory, comprehensive community.

Surveying the community gives feedback on how to support the artists and flamenco arts. Support is then made by offering free and extremely discounted contractual services to provide tools, inspiration and innovative solutions to sustain flamenco culture. Examples include: the Performer's Network: professional contacts, shared information services for Artists such as housing needs, grant resources, lawyer referrals, health insurance information. Artist and Artistic Directors tools include free Featured Artist articles to launch emerging artists' careers by offering free webspace and 7,000 webhits advertising their classes and performance schedules. Cuadro Portfolios, free of design fees are professional portfolios which can be used by artistic directors when contracting with potential venues to establish regular tablao performances, which give artists steady work.

SF FLAMENCO MAGAZINE
Since 2000, SF Flamenco online magazine has worked to support and showcase the entire flamenco community in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. The on-line flamenco magazine is the community's public interface and includes event listings, an artist/teacher directory, historical and education resources, art, nightlife and resources on local, U.S.A., Spanish and international flamenco art and culture. An email newsletter provides information on the above and additional class information adding to the campaign to encourage the public to engage in the flamenco arts. The magazine now averages 7,000 webhits per month from local and international readers.

VISUAL AESTHETICS
Visual Arts Representation: Articulating culture
SF Flamenco embraces the challenge to reflect as best it can the essence of the flamenco aesthetic through visual communication. While much of the content is text based, the graphic design, and fine art associated with SF Flamenco provide the framework for the experience of the information. Visual communication is it's own language based on cognitive process, integral parameters and contextual issues similar to those of the primary art forms of dance, guitar and song. Completed visual representations are used both as this site and throughout this site. Examples of completed visual arts representing flamenco include "Live Sketches" in which the artist worked as if he were a part of the performing cuadro. The process of the sketch reflected the act of performance. Another example is metaphor for aesthetics including the "Fire Dancer" image. This piece was created, resting on the metaphor of fire as a primary human element and symbol of passion in flamenco, by capturing live video footage of fire, and using pictures of individual flames to puzzle piece together the image of a dancer. An in-depth project is currently underway to create a body of fine art flamenco paintings aiming to articulate through a nuanced style, reflexive within flamenco arts.

FLAMENCO
ANDALUCíA : SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA

PHASE ONE can be accomplished with little or no funding
TRACING THE FAMILY TREE: 1950’s – 2000
The community of flamencos will together create a family tree of the San Francisco Bay Area Flamenco community, aiming to connect the many roots back to Andalucía. Creating a deep voice, the community together will tell our own history. Through a community meeting we will trace the family tree, have a professional development workshop, create a list of key flamencos to interview for oral histories, and create a list of what archival information exists and where it is. We will prepare grant material for Phase 2 including a short video 'Flamenco community and North Beach History video'. Phase 1 is volunteered by Jason Engelund and Sponsored in part by the Center for Art and Public Life. The project started May 2004 and aims to end December 2004. The family tree will be displayed on the SF Flamenco website History Page.
+ FLAMENCO COMMUNITY MEETING R.S.V.P: Community Meeting Agenda and attendance sheet

PHASE TWO pending funding
DEEP STORY / DIGITAL VIDEO AND ARCHIVES
San Francisco Bay Area Flamencos 1950s - 2000: With funding Phase 2 will organize and train the community to participate in creating a historical archive and documentary video. Phase 2, a large project will include community training workshops, produce an analogue and digital archive to be housed in SF Flamenco as well as San Francisco Performing Arts Library(potential partner), and showcased through the SF Ethnic Dance Festival(potential partner). Piloting the First Annual SF Flamenco Festival will also be a goal, by collaborating with existing annual flamenco event hosted by Cal Performances(potential partner) World Stage series. Phase 2 will also produce a documentary video in which the flamenco community tells of it's own history and culture. All of the project elements will be utilized in collaboration with SF Flamenco's affiliate from Andalucía, Flamenco-World(potential partner).
+ FLAMENCO COMMUNITY SIGN UP AS PRODUCTION CREW: Roster (pending funding)

PHASE THREE a future potential, under construction
FLAMENCO / ANDALUCíA : SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
Treatment Sketch: feature film: Translating flamenco into film: issues of purity: the effect of medium and its production process on aesthetic. Multiple media : multiple dimensions to reflect the contemporary flamenco context. Split screens, multiple audio : Andalucía, SF; Spanish : English; Puro fountain : SF tourist spots.
Content: San Francisco Scene: Flamenco an art form originally made of many cultures meeting in one land, now is found throughout the world. What questions can we pose to this scenario? Flamenco as the Global Villager: Effects of diaspora on traditional aesthetics and culture. Integration of flamenco art and culture into new lands. Fusions: dialogues between new cultural influences and flamenco. Puro: the struggle of tradition, essence of cultural ideologies, and aesthetics; the question of 'purity' the question of 'originality'. Bloodline and adoption in community. Visions of the flamenco world: Post colonial critique of 'the exotic'. Visual arts representation of. etc. This potential feature film would be funded by investors and rest on the foundation of the completed Phase 2 project.