Join us for Welcome to Holland!?, a transformative experience blending flamenco with theatrical dance, poetry, humor, spoken word, film, and physical installation. This multidisciplinary work aims to illuminate the often overlooked role of caregivers.

Flamenco dancer, educator and choreographer Laura Sánchez reimagines Emily Kingsley’s poem, originally about parenting a child with a disability, to capture the essence of being a mother — a caregiver — waking up to a world transformed by trauma. The unique performance challenges societal narratives about motherhood, preconceived notions of disability, deconstruct internalized ableism, and celebrates the inherent strength of caregivers, creating a space for dialogue and reflection.

This series of work has been supported by the Boston Center for the Arts, the Iliad Fund, The Boston Foundation, the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the LAB art Grant, the Mass Cultural Council Choreography Award, the Next Steps to Dance Grant, the Dance Complex, and local Cultural Council Grants from Cambridge, Everett, Chelsea, Revere and Somerville.

Laura Sánchez is an award-winning flamenco artist, creator, choreographer and educator originally from Cádiz, Spain. She began her flamenco education as a child and received professional training from the Dance Conservatory of Madrid. Laura holds a Professional Certificate in Expressive Arts Therapies from Lesley University where she developed an emerging therapeutic dance practice, Expressive Flamenco©. She presents this work internationally and continues to serve annually as Guest Professor for the Lesley University Expressive Therapies Master’s Program. Her most recent research work was published at the Journal of the American Dance Therapy Association in 2021.

Laura actively performs as a soloist in flamenco venues in the Eastern U.S., and placed 3rd at the 2016 Flamenco Certamen USA, an international competition that takes place in NYC annually. She has worked as an independent choreographer for organizations including Boston College of Fine Arts, the Boston City Council, Bridgewater University, and Kingston Theater, among several others. Laura also works as an independent producer and has presented several flamenco shows over the past ten years in Massachusetts. In her latest production, Flamenco at Starlight, she brought the flamenco community back together to perform for the first time in Cambridge since the Covid-19 global pandemic. Laura’s commitment to building community has made this show an annual event.

During the pandemic she created an award-winning short film, AFTER DARK, to tell the resilient story of a community affected by the Covid-19. She has received funding from the prestigious Live Arts Boston grant led by the Boston Foundation, Next Steps to Dance and NEFA’s dance fund. She has been a recipient of the Mass Cultural Council Choreography Award in 2021 and was honored to be a member of Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana Professional Consórcio Flamenco, a group dedicated to growing flamenco on the national stage in 2020.