Nigel Parry, Downtown St. Paul Voice —Growing up in Elk River, Tara Weatherly dabbled in several extra-curricular activities before finding something that suited her. She enjoyed gymnastics and figure skating and tried dance one summer, but the forms taught there didn’t resonate with her.

“It didn’t seem much fun. You had to be so cute and have a smile on your face all the time. It just didn’t seem like it was for me,” she said of the ballet, tap and jazz classes.

Yet dance would become a big part of her life. She was introduced to flamenco dancing as a teenager and was intrigued by it.

“In flamenco, the sound of the dance itself creates music. It seemed a better combination of music and movement than other forms,” she said. “It wasn’t all tutus and glitter. Yes, flamenco has big ruffles and polka dots but the dance itself has a lot of variety, both the feminine and masculine.”

As an adult, Weatherly started taking flamenco classes in Minneapolis in 2001 and it was there that she discovered her passion. She pursued the art form through independent study, including absorbing the athletic, graceful and unique style of Osaka-born flamenco dancer and choreographer Sachiko. She danced flamenco for almost ten years then started to teach it. She moved to Lowertown in 2006, where she lives with her partner, Dave Bellmont, a local filmmaker and producer.

“We founded Sendero Flamenco in 2004 with guitarists Michael Ziegahn and David Elrod and dancer Shari Peterson,” said Weatherly. “Michael still plays with us today.” Weatherly (a.k.a. “La Tarara”) is the artistic director and principal dancer at the school. She is assisted by dancer Maribel Lopez.

Sendero Flamenco also gives performances, most recently with Indian dance troupe Kala Vandanam, founded by Suchitra Sairam in 2002 to educate and perform Bharatanatyam, the oldest and most widely performed classical dance tradition of India. The visual mix and play between the two dance forms is stunning. The groups performed at the Lowertown Dance Showcase, which has deservedly become a regular and popular event at the St. Paul Art Crawl. Other venues have included Union Depot, Bedlam Theatre and Golden’s Lowertown. The recent performance during the Art Crawl packed the house at Golden’s.

Studio Sendero was originally based in the JAX building at 4th and Wacouta but relocated after the building was sold to New York developers a year ago. Weatherly and a dozen other displaced JAX artists moved to a new gallery space in the basement of the Northern Warehouse building at 4th and Broadway. Located under AZ Gallery and the Black Dog Cafe, the space has been dubbed “Lowertown Underground Artists.”

Many of the changes in Lowertown have embittered artists, many of whom have been forced out of the neighborhood as rents have skyrocketed in a sea of rental and condo speculation. The average rent in Lowertown and Downtown now is $1,150 for 650 square feet. The cheapest studio space in the Tilsner Artists’ Cooperative, an Artspace project that purportedly offers affordable art spaces, is more than $900.

The JAX exodus happened in style, with a death announcement and a New Orleans-style jazz wake, featuring the Brass Messengers and Sendero Flamenco. Images of Weatherly stomping on a black coffin in the middle of Mears Park made headline news. Local artists and photographers captured the event.

As a “gentrification refugee,” Weatherly is acutely aware of the negative changes in the neighborhood, but hasn’t stopped her from embracing the good.

“It’s not that I think that all the changes are bad,” she said, “I don’t.” When Union Depot, Metro Transit’s Green Line and CHS Field opened, Weatherly worked with organizers to include the arts. Sendero Flamenco held a dance showcase to give visitors a taste of what Lowertown offers.

“I want people to understand the history of this place and respect the people that came before,” she said. “When I came here the first thing I did was learn about what this neighborhood is, what it was, what it turned into, and who was responsible for it. It was very important for me to give props to the elders who came before me, who did all this groundwork, so that I can do what I want to do here in this space.”

Despite Green Line construction that shut down much of 4th and Prince streets at the beginning of this decade, Weatherly hosted a successful event series, The Gathering, at the Black Dog Cafe for four years.

“It’s been most upsetting to see developers and other people coming in, and they just don’t care,” she said, noting that the JAX building remains empty today. “They just think it’s a neat place and they don’t care about the history of it. I want people to know that this neighborhood was created like this for a reason. It was needed because there was nothing like it here before, and these people (artists) made it happen.” She plugged the TPT documentary, “Rise of an Urban Village,” to anyone interested in learning more about the history of Lowertown.

Together with Rachel Wacker and other Lowertown residents, Weatherly is co-organizing Domination Corporation, a gentrification theater installation sponsored by the St. Paul Saints. It is scheduled to take place at CHS Field on June 10 as part of the all-night Northern Spark festival.

This summer, Sendero Flamenco will offer a variety of classes for men and women, including the basic Flamenco Foundation class that teaches beginners how to listen and move to flamenco, the all-levels Flamenco Fiesta class that teaches the structure of some of the traditional fiesta dances, and other upper level classes, including choreography.

“This summer, for the first time, we’re creating what we’re calling a flamenco percussion orchestra,” she said. “We’re going to play a lot with traditional and non-traditional instruments and rhythms.”

For more information, visit sendero-flamenco.com.