Skirt Pick Up Techniques in Advanced Flamenco Dancing

"Hi! Thank you for visiting Expertvillage.com. My name is Yvette Parrish. And we will be working a little bit on some flamenco skirt work right now. Your skirt is another tool while you are dancing. With flamenco dancers we’re so lucky that we have the fans and castanets and manton and we have got all these props we can use while we are dancing not to mention our footwork. So what we are going to be doing right now is playing a little bit with our skirt. Us as ladylike proper flamencos¸ we do not bend down to pick up our skirts. The skirts come to us. So you bend your knee bring your skirt towards you. Bend your knee, bring the skirt towards you. You want to practice that, you bring your knee up try not to pick it because then it has like… not a good look. When you bring your knee up, grab your whole kneecap, grab your skirt there, grab your skirt there and then you can bring it to your waist right here now everyone can see your pretty footwork, practice it several times. Because everyone tends to hold it like this and look… see that does not even look good even now, don’t do that. So, grab your kneecap, grab your kneecap. I never want to see anyone bent down, not only is your big butt on somebody’s face, now your cleavage is hanging out, that is not feminine or ladylike whatsoever. So bring your knee to you. I always kind of remember it that we are proud flamenco, I do not bend down, you must come to me. So I bring my knee to my waist, knee, skirt to the waist, drop it. Practice again, knee, knee, okay. Just don’t grab it stinky like this, because look, it looks like I don’t even want my skirt. This is your skirt, all right so flamenco is a lot about power and strength and the same thing with your skirt. This is a toy, another tool you can use. So bring up your knee, bring up your knee. Another way you can do it is you can have your hands in front of you and you can grab your skirt and bring it up, kind of like a curtain, it finally comes up there. So depends what routine you are doing, you can put your hands in front and you can grab your skirt and bring it up, like so."