julia alcantara - director . performer . artist 

"Ida Y Vuelta flamenco dance company is world class art! Such spirit, excitement and artistic integrity inspires the audience in ways they will long remember"

Julia's Art

Julia Alcántara has been bringing the best of Flamenco music and dance to North Texas since 1998. She’s a native Texan who began studying the art of Flamenco after graduating  from Plano Senior High School.  After studying for three years with Dallas Flamenco Matriarch Conte De Loyo, she moved to New York to study with Antonio Del Castillo and Raquel Heredia. She finished her education at UNM in Albuquerque, the heart of flamenco in the US, where the the curriculum includes classes in Flamenco History, choreography, improvisation, singing, and classical spanish dance with Eva Encinias and Pablo Rodarte. There she was able to perfect her technique and study with some of the greatest dancers in the world including:  Eva ‘La Yerba Buena’, Antonio Canales, Juana Amaya, Alejandro Granados,  Carmela Greco, Omayra Amaya, Belen Maya, and Florencio Campos among others. This superb training immediately earned a her 3 month national tour with a New York dance company. After her experience there she decided to return to Dallas, import top-notch talent from around the globe and start her own world-class Flamenco dance company. Thus, ‘Ida y Vuelta’ was born.

Ms. Alcántara has brought to Dallas, and performed with, numerous world-class guest artists: flamenco dancers, singers, and musicians from all over the U.S., Spain, and other parts of the world. They have performed in restaurants and theaters and at festivals and private parties all over the Dallas-Fort Worth area Mexico. From the swanky Venetian Room at the Fairmont Hotel, to a 30 day contract at the State Fair of Texas to the Villa de Sol in Zihuatanejo.  Her shows always pack the house and received rave reviews.

Ms. Alcántara has also performed in The Dallas Opera’s production of La Vida Breve, at the Palace Theater for the Performing Arts in San Francisco and at the World Cup opening ceremonies.  Ms. Alcántara’s latest project is creation of the ‘Oak Cliff Flamenco Festival’ Sept 2015, an exciting, 10-day-long festival presenting flamenco dance and music performances by local and international artists, as well as dance classes and flamenco-themed movies. The festival, to be held September 17-26, 2015, will brought flamenco to numerous restaurants, open air spaces, and performing-arts venues in the Bishop Arts District, the exciting North Oak Cliff neighborhood west of I-35 in Dallas that is home to over 60 independent businesses, as well as to other venues in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.