Image by Enoch Chan

Written by DCist contributor Amanda Abrams

Onstage, Edwin Aparicio is all fire and precision: with his proud snapping shoulders and fast-moving feet, he fully embodies Spain’s best-known dance style, flamenco. But offstage, the man who has done much to increase flamenco’s presence around the city is a D.C. boy through and through. Born in El Salvador, he grew up in Mount Pleasant and attended the city’s public schools and dance studios before seriously turning his focus to flamenco. Eventually, Aparicio widened his perspective – and embellished his movement style – by traveling abroad to study in Spain, the center of the flamenco world.

Now he’s back in Washington and performing this weekend at Fuego Flamenco VI, the GALA Hispanic Theatre’s sixth international flamenco festival. Tickets are $18-30.

In advance of his performance, Aparicio spoke with DCist about flamenco’s complexity, how it’s evolving, and something he describes as the “peacock attitude.”

How did you get into flamenco?

A lot of people say what captivated them with flamenco was passion, love, all that, but that for me came second. As a teenager, you’re more involved in other things and passion isn’t one of them. I fell in love with the difficulty, the complexity of the art form, first. It’s super complex—you have to know the culture and understand the art itself. Once I achieved that understanding somewhat, the passion and expressiveness came, along with age and maturity.