Passionate steps to the dark and soulful jondo

Amarita is a respected flamenco dancer. Tall and powerfully built, she is a dramatic presence on the stage. But despite the name, Amarita is English.

She discovered flamenco by chance, but was immediately seduced and thrilled by its passion, and since then she has given her life to it.

"I was at Oxford, and, although I didn't know why, I just felt that I wanted to go to Spain. I couldn't afford a return ticket, so I bought a single fare to Seville and booked into a youth hostel there.

"Late at night, I was wandering around. It was August, absolutely baking hot, and hundreds of people were sitting outside just talking and drinking, and I really had this feeling that I was on a mission to find something.

"I wandered around the old quarter, the Barrio Santa Cruz, and I heard this music coming out of a bar. I looked in, and it was amazing, it was like a curtain had been lifted. People were singing and playing guitars. It was incredibly hot, sweaty and smoky, and crowded and noisy, with people laughing and joking, and these fabulous women were dancing, and I thought, what is this?

"This is what I want to do and I went back every night till my money ran out and then managed to hitch a lift to Paris, where a friend lent me enough money to get back to Oxford. That was the beginning of my trip into flamenco, and looking back it really seems to make sense that I bought a one-way ticket."

Amarita had always felt pulled in two directions by the academic world and her more artistic leanings - she is a writer and a painter as well - but after this "Eureka moment" as she puts it, she has devoted herself almost completely to flamenco. But, of course, being thrilled in a Spanish bar doesn't teach you how to do it.

"I'd never even heard of flamenco being performed outside Spain and I also had this feeling that you weren't allowed' to do flamenco unless you were Spanish and also a gypsy. But I managed to find a weekend workshop in Bristol and the teacher was Conchita del Campo, who is based in London and is one of the examiners for the Spanish Dance Society and a very senior teacher.

"When I turned up, I didn't have the shoes. In fact, I didn't have anything. She gave me a pair of her flamenco shoes, which was a lovely gift, and then I started studying seriously at La Escuela de Baile, that's the top school in London. For the past ten years flamenco has been my life. I keep making trips back to Spain to do masterclasses with lots of famous flamenco teachers."

Amarita founded the Oxford Flamenco Academy seven years ago and they have classes at every level from beginners up to advanced, catering to the requirements of about 50 students.

In 2004, she also founded the Oxford Flamenco Group, which is a performing group drawn from students at the academy, whose recent performances have been sponsored by the printers Carbon Colour and Bourton Mill Gym.

The first Flamenco Fiesta took place two years ago at Headington School Theatre and was very successful. In fact, it got an enthusiastic review in this newspaper by my colleague, Nicola Lisle. Sponsorship has enabled Amarita to use the group in the first part of this year's fiesta. The remainder of the programme will be performed by professional dancers, musicians and singers.

"We are going to have two distinguished flamenco guitarists, two singers and three other flamenco dancers. Flamenco songs and dances fall into three categories - chico, which means light-hearted, medio, which means middling, and jondo, which means deep . . . really gut-wrenching, very dark and soulful, and that's where you get the agonised-sounding shouting.

"I'll be doing the second jondo piece as a solo just before our fiesta finale. I'll be wearing a very special dress called a batta de cola. It's a gown with a train like a wedding train. It's an incredibly heavy dress. It weighs five kilos and needs a very particular technique because the dress has to be manipulated in rhythm entirely by your leg, so the train has to be lifted and placed back on to the floor on exactly the right beat. It means making the dress part of the choreography and that's extremely difficult. That's my biggest personal challenge in this show and it's also the first time anyone has performed in a Batta de Cola in Oxford."

One big plus of this exciting dance style is that you can start learning as an adult. If you are interested - and you may well be after seeing the show - visit www.oxfordflamencoacademy.co.uk, or call Amarita on 01865 552234.

Flamenco Fiesta is at the Pegasus Theatre, Magdalen Road, Oxford, on November 10 with a matinee and an evening performance. For tickets call 01865 722851.