Fanny Ara Flamenco

Fanny Ara began her dance studies at age three, studying ballet and Contemporary dance at the Irene Popard School in St. Jean de Luz in the French Basque country. As a child, she studied Spanish classical dance with Catalina Gommes and traveled regularly to Madrid to train with maestros Isabel Quintero and Antonio Najarro. In addition to her dance training, she also studied piano at the Bayonne School of Art for eleven years. After earning a BA in Literature with a specialty in Music from The Bayonne School of Art, she relocated to Spain. A two-year intensive in flamenco studies in both Sevilla and Madrid followed with Juana Amaya, El Torombo, Manolo Soler, and Hiniesta Cortes. In Madrid, Fanny was soon featured in flamenco tablaos and was accepted into the prestigious Academy of Mario Maya.

Fanny has been an invited artist in national and international festivals and has toured extensively in Canada, Central and South America, the Middle East, Africa, and throughout Europe. She has been distinguished since 2006 with nominations from the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards in the categories of Most Outstanding Individual Dancer, Most Outstanding Music, Ensemble, and Individual Performance for her project, Juncal Street, and Best Ensemble for her work with the San Francisco Opera in La Traviata. New York’s Vilcek Foundation also awarded Fanny a prestigious finalist prize for “Creative Promise in Dance” in 2012. Fanny’s versatility in the art form of flamenco is manifested in her many artistic works. Her latest work as an artistic director/principal dancer "Tattooed", which premiered in October 2019 in San Francisco, was reviewed as " one of the most amazing, moving and effective flamenco productions where the ovation was immediate, standing , vociferous, prolonged."