The scent of orange blossoms and the sound of church bells triggered a rush of memories for Rosario Ancer at the start of the 21st century.
She was studying flamenco in Seville, Spain when she awoke at 5 a.m. to the fragrance that flooded her childhood home in Mexico.
It really moved a lot of feelings, she said. For a little while [after] I arrived to Canada we were so busy just surviving with two little kids and trying to make a living here that I sort of shut down a lot of those memories, of feelings, or nostalgia, but there was a time that I had to deal with it.
Ancer returned to Mexico with the help of an arts grant to focus on her past. She spoke to people who knew her parents, who died within three years of each other when she was in her early teens, and reconnected with her three brothers and seven sisters.
The sisters and the brothers really clung together after [losing] my parents, but mainly the sisters. They get together every week for coffee, Ancer said. Im the only one whos not there.
Her resulting show, Mis Hermanas: Thicker than Water, My Sisters and I, premiered in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»in 2008 and returns to the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Playhouse, April 6, before it tours B.C. and Yukon as part of Made in B.C.s 2012-2013 season of contemporary dance.
Mis Hermanas recalls Ancers dreams of becoming a dancer, her journey to Spain and her arrival in Vancouver, travelling between countries, cultures and times.
Ancer and seven other dancers from Mexico and Canada, who embody her sisters, perform flamenco to compositions performed live by musicians from Canada, Spain and Mexico and the narrative Ancer created with the help of Touchstone Theatres artistic director and dramaturge Katrina Dunn. Ancers contemporary story is an innovation in flamenco, which tends to passionately tread through old tales.
Ancer developed a craving to see the world while watching movies in her fathers cinema and tasted independence as the first girl in her family to work outside her fathers business.
She left Mexico in 1979 at age 28 to study flamenco in Spain. She spent six formative years in the country where she met her husband, Flamenco Rosarios musical director Victor Kolstee. A decade later, the couple and their kids settled in Vancouver.
Ancer pursued her dreams but says leaving people and places behind comes with a cost.
When you leave the place that you are born, your heart breaks into pieces and it will never be one piece again. The place that you go [back] to is never the same as you left, Ancer said. In a way I feel that I belong to three places and to none.
Two months before Mis Hermanas premiered, Ancer suffered cold feet. She wondered who would care about her deeply personal journey.
But she soon discovered elements of her story touched everyone.
We have never received this kind of feedback. Its been amazing, Ancer said. It touches people in different levels, because youre an immigrant, because your father just died, because you are away from your sisters, because you love flamenco.
Mis Hermanas also stirred up memories for Ancers sisters, four of whom attended the 2008 Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»premiere, and her brothers when the show toured Mexico in 2010.
Reliving her past in a performance that includes archival photos and videos of her sisters has helped Ancer resolve some of her own uncertainties.
The most important thing that I learned is that all the experiences that I have been through make me very strong, she said. And that I didnt play safely. I could have, but I did not. That I take risk[s] and that I definitely am a family oriented person. That I love Canada, that I love Mexico, that I love Spain, and that I love what I do, even at that price. Dancing gives me something very, very special, fulfills me. There is a price to pay for that and I had to pay it.
twitter.com/Cheryl_Rossi
