The Flowering of the Hands

"Your hands should move like doves." -- from Carlos Saura's Flamenco

One of the myriad of things I am learning to do in flamenco is move my arms and hands carefully and gracefully. In flamenco, you make these undulating and flowing embellishments with your hands. They are called floreo.

The flowering of the hands.

I like practicing these movements because I happen to like my hands a lot. They have always been one of my favorite parts of me.

When I was little, I used to twirl my hands and wrists and watch them move like they had a life of their own. Like they were sea creatures swimming or ribbons made of silk.

I have been making flamenco hands my whole life and I didn't even know it until now.

Below are two excerpts from the movie Flamenco that beautifully illustrate the concept of the floreo.





Flamenco Hands, originally uploaded by vergentino