HARTS Fund Programming: Flamenco Artist and PCC English Faculty, Elena Villa, Visits Humanities 100
Posted by Andrew Cohen
On October 31, the PCC HARTS Fund, which supports humanities and arts programming and scholarships around the college, sponsored a visit by Flamenco dancer and PCC English Faculty, Elena Villa, to Andrew Cohen’s Humanities 100 class.
During her visit with the class of twenty students, Elena, who started studying Flamenco in 1991, discussed the history of Flamenco and its cultural significance, and the class viewed and discussed a powerful Flamenco performance in front of Picasso’s Guernica.
Humanities 100 student, Min Thet, about whom you can read more below, had this to say about the experience:
“One of the things that mesmerized me during Elena Villa’s lecture was how art can be melted into one gigantic display to bring out the best of their worlds. When I watched the video of the woman performing flamenco in front of Picasso’s painting, I felt as if it was more than just a woman performing with a backdrop of beautiful painting. It was the amalgamation of art from two different dimensions coming together in order to create a brand-new form of creative performance where the two not only complement each other but also recognize and inspire one another. I would imagine an average person who has a flair for flamenco would not be usually concerned with Picasso or painting in general. The fact that one could be exposed to another form of art simply through the existence of the other brings out the perspective on the potential of maintaining the legacy of one art using the other.”
We are grateful to the HARTS Fund for supporting this event and others like it.
To read more about Elena, check out her website.
To support the HARTS Fund and opportunities for students like this visit the HARTS webpage and click on Donate to HARTS. Under “Designation,” click “Other” and write HARTS in the space provided. Thank you for your generosity!
Min Thet is originally from Burma, new to the U.S., and has just started their academic journey here at PCC. As they navigate their life, they are open to many possibilities that the future holds. Being torn apart between uncertainties, they have yet to choose a major to specialize in and what to do with it afterward. For now, they like all things related to humanities, media, and anything in between.