Briseyda Zárate is an inspired and skilled Flamenco Dancer, Choreographer & Teacher based in Los Angeles, CA. She’s a Mexicana/Chicana raised in a campesino household in Delano, CA. She began studying dance and performing at the age of 5 and has dedicated the last 25 years of her life to Flamenco. Briseyda has lived, studied and performed at length in Spain and is among the few in the top-most level of those practicing this art form in the United States.
Her career highlights include performing nightly in the Madrileño Tablao , “El Cafe de Chinitas” amongst others. During this time she shared the stage with noted Gypsy artists, Juan Treviño, Leo Treviño, El Ciervo, Antonia la Pescailla, La Chungi, and Los Habichuela. She She studied daily with Master teacher Manuel Reyes Maya at the renown school Amor De Dios. She’s performed and studied in Sevilla/Triana and has shared the stage with the legendary Carmen Ledesma. Last year she performed in La Fiesta de La Buleria in Jerez de La Frontera under the direction of Maria Bermudez, sharing the bill with the creme de la creme such as La Farruca, Remedios Amaya and Esperanza Fernandez.
In the US she was awarded 1st place at the Festival Flamenco Internacional de Albuquerque “IV Concurso Nacional de Flamenco”. Briseyda’s been a featured soloist at numerous US Flamenco Festivals, and this past year her company performed at the prestigious Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. She’s a long standing member of the LA Flamenco Community. She’s been a soloist at the John Ahnson Ford Amphitheatre, The Hollywood Bowl, The Fountain Theater and The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion where she ll choreographed l the LA Opera’s Production of “Carmen”. Briseyda splits her time between LA and Spain and directs her Company and co-produces and stars in her Flamenco dance series “Noches De Tablao”.
Briseyda is passionate about being a good artist and a good teacher. She’s able to teach seemingly unavailable skills by encouraging the smallest action possible to inspire big transformations in her students. With a less is more a approach she gets to the HeART of the matter which is always honest and powerful. She goes goes beyond teaching steps and transmits the spirit of the dance.
Flamenco for Briseyda is powerful medicine and is a very personal and spiritual experience where she communes with the ancestors. She coins what she does as “Flamen-Cura” which is the phenomenon of healing through Flamenco, and identifies herself as a Flamen-Curandera: An Indigenous woman who practices, performs and teaches the sacred ritual of Flamenco with the intention of healing herself and others. She also uses Flamenco in harmony with other Indigenous native rituals and practices. This is a journey Briseyda has been called to, to heal the 500 plus years of generational trauma and genocide that she carries in her dna from both her Mexican Indigenous and Gypsy/Moorish ancestry.
Briseyda Zárate FLAMENCO 