AL ANDALUS 2.0: a life in flamenco that wants to keep growing
I am not just building a digital system. I am trying to help many years of art, teaching and life between Andalusia and Japan keep growing without losing their most human side.
For much of my life, flamenco has been my way of getting to know the world.
I have been a flamenco dancer, choreographer and teacher, but flamenco has also taught me to listen, to care, to make mistakes and to begin again.
Living and working in Japan has allowed me to look at Andalusia from a different distance. Here I have understood that flamenco is not preserved by shutting it away. It is preserved when it is shared with respect; when a student discovers her own body; when a Japanese person understands the rhythmic cycle without having to have been born in southern Spain; and when a genuine experience passes from one generation to the next.
BG Flamenco Academy and AL ANDALUS Agency Flamenca grew out of that life. A school and an agency may seem like two different projects, but to me they are part of the same idea: creating a living bridge between Andalusia and Japan.
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The problem with keeping an entire life in your head
For years, many things have lived in my memory: choreographies, ways of explaining a movement, artistic decisions, memories, videos, photographs, projects, conversations and ways of solving problems.
That knowledge has helped me build an academy and keep creating. But it also has a limit. When everything depends on my head, my time and my daily presence, the work cannot breathe on its own.
That is why I began building AL ANDALUS 2.0.
The name may sound like a computer program, but to me it means something simpler and, at the same time, deeper. It is a way to organise what we have lived through, know where everything is, distinguish the urgent from the important, and turn experience into a legacy that other people can understand and carry forward.
It is not just about keeping documents. It is about preserving the meaning of things.
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Nine spaces for a single body of work
AL ANDALUS 2.0 organises the work into nine areas. There is a space for leadership and decisions; another for the academy and its students; another for events and the stage; and others for content, business development, finances, technology, the artistic agency and the historical archive.
I do not want to create departments for their own sake. I want every idea to find its place. Every task to have someone responsible for it, a status and a clear next step. Important decisions to stop disappearing into a conversation, a notebook or a folder that nobody can find afterwards.
Behind this process, I use tools such as Google Drive, Notion, ChatGPT and Codex. Each has a different role. Google Drive keeps the official documents. Notion helps display tasks, decisions and priorities. ChatGPT accompanies me as I think, analyse and organise. Codex works directly with files, data, structures and automations.
But none of these tools should replace my artistic judgement or make human decisions for me. Technology should give me time back: time to teach, create, dance, care for people and be truly present.
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Automating without losing the soul
I am interested in technology, but I do not want a cold school or a business that treats people as numbers.
BG Flamenco Academy must remain a welcoming, safe home with high expectations. A place where every student can feel supported, discover her possibilities and feel proud of the flamenco she is learning.
I also want AL ANDALUS to be able to create more valuable artistic opportunities and explain flamenco to Japanese audiences without turning it into an empty product. Flamenco needs organisation, but it also needs truth.
First simplify. Then automate.
An automation only makes sense when it reduces real work, prevents mistakes and protects what matters. I do not want to automate human relationships. I want to automate the noise that keeps us from experiencing them.
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Legacy is not about looking back
When I speak of legacy, I am not thinking of a monument or a farewell. I am thinking of something alive: a well-documented choreography, a class that someone else can understand, a photograph with its story, a decision that does not have to be made again from scratch, and a student who may one day pass on what she learned.
I think of my mistakes too. Flamenco has taught me that a mistake does not always break the dance. Sometimes, within that mistake, the flavour of the next step is already there.
With AL ANDALUS 2.0, I am trying to do the same: turn many years of trial, effort and learning into a clearer foundation for the future.
My dream is for BG Flamenco Academy to become an international point of reference while remaining human; for AL ANDALUS to connect Andalusia and Japan firmly; and for everything we have learned to keep growing without requiring me to personally hold up every little detail.
This system is still under construction. So am I.
I want to share this journey little by little with those of you who have followed my work, because behind every folder, every class, every project and every decision, the same question remains: how can we move forward without losing the truth of flamenco?
Thank you for being there on the other side.
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Related links
Official website: https://www.bgflamenco.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@bgflamenco Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/benitogarcia_japon
AlitaDePollo
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