Watch FLAMENCO AT 5:15, a Life-Affirming, Oscar-Winning Documentary About a Flamenco Dance Class

FLAMENCO AT 5:15, the Academy Award-winning short documentary, above, is a welcome antidote to the depressing specter of youthful bodies in a chronic state of computer-related postural collapse.

Director Cynthia Scott’s thirty-minute vignette cannot help but show off the beautiful, highly trained physiques of the young dancers delving into the art of flamenco at Canada’s National Ballet School.

She also captures the lasting beauty of their instructor, Susana Audeoud, then in her late 60s. Her posture erect, her eyes shining brightly in a face weathered by experience and time, Audeleoud shares one of flamenco’s great secrets—that its practioners, unlike their counterparts in the ballet, can continue dancing until they die. (Audleoud herself passed away on the first day of 2010, at the age of 93.)

Flamenco is an incredibly exacting art, but Audeloud and her husband, composer Antonio Robledo, showed themselves to be warm and good humored teachers.

All of us could benefit from following Audeloud’s instructions to her barefoot pupils at the 1:10 mark. Forgo your meditation app for a day and give it a try.

Or join the students in Robledo’s joyful group clapping exercise at the 8:00 mark.

According to Audeloud, flamenco dancers only dance when it’s necessary…

I know that most of us are utterly without training, but it appears that we have entered a period of extreme necessity.