MERCEDES IBARRA

Mercedes Ibarra discovered Flamenco in 1995 at UCLA when choosing a dance class on a whim. She fell in love with Flamenco during the very first class and her teacher, Liliana de Leon-Torsiello, described her as a natural and asked her to join her company, DeLiRitmo, within a year. After her years at UCLA, she became a member of the Gabriela Garza Flamenco Dance Company, performing at several venues in Los Angeles and Orange County, California. In 2005, she and her husband, Tarik, moved to Spain where she studied at the world-renowned Centro de Arte Flamenco y Danza Española, Amor de Dios, in Madrid. While she was there, she studied with Flamenco masters such as, La Truco, David Paniagua, Inmaculada Ortega, Marta Jimenez and Manuel Reyes Maya, the latter being her primary influence during that time. While in Madrid, Mercedes also performed at the tablao, El Juglar, in the historic Flamenco district of Lavapiés. She returned to the US in 2008 and continued studying with local masters, including Linda Andrade and Roberto Amaral.

Mercedes has collaborated with many local Flamenco artists, including Claudia de la Cruz, Briseyda Zarate, and Angelita Agujetas, as well as artists outside of Flamenco such as when she collaborated with Heidi Duckler for Collage Dance Theatre’s 25th anniversary performance, “Governing Bodies” at Los Angeles City Hall. She has also been a guest Teaching Artist for the Heidi Duckler Duck Truck residency, where she taught location-specific dance with a Flamenco flare. Since 2015, Mercedes has been on the faculty of the prestigious Orange County School of the Arts as the Flamenco Teacher in their Ballet Folklorico Conservatory.

For her various projects and collaborations, Mercedes Ibarra was nominated for and accepted into the International Dance Council at UNESCO in 2014.

PROGRAMS