Welcome to Esencia Flamenca Dance Company's Meetup Group!  Esencia Flamenca Dance is a dance company based in Long Beach, California, founded by Sarah Parra .  Our mission is to enrich the lives of southern Californians by exposing them to the art of flamenco.  We have performances at local venues, hold dance classes on a weekly basis, and notify the community of all kinds of live flamenco performances and opportunities.  If you love flamenco and would like to be involved on any level - you need to join this group!

About the directors:

Sarah Parra , has been teaching and performing Flamenco dance for over 20 yrs in the Southern California area. She has a degree is Dance from UCI. She has studied extensively in Madrid, Sevilla, and Jerez. She founded EFDC in the year 2000. She has taught at UCI, Cypress college and many local dance studios. Sarah was one of the original Flamenco dancers at Alegria in Long Beach and Tapas in Newport Beach.

Lisa Nicole Smith has been dancing flamenco since 1998 when introduced to the art form at San Francisco State University by Rosa Montoya, of the famed Montoya family. Since then she has studied under local greats Liliana de Leon Torsiello, La Yeni, Ricardo Chavez, Briseyda Zarate, and Sarita Parra. In 2001 she joined the DeliRitmo Flamenco Dance Company, and in 2006 the Esencia Flamenca Dance Company. Lisa has studied in Sevilla Spain– under acclaimed dancers like Manuela Rios, Pilar Ortega, Eva la Yerbabuena, Isabel Bayon, and Angel Atienza. Lisa was featured in the 2009 and 2010 concerts of Raul Navarro Junior, and in both the Los Angeles and Santa Barbara debuts of “Flamenco Loves Tango”.