♪ Felicia Curry: Flamenco is a music and dance form that originated in southern Spain.

It's now danced around the world, and when Fairfax, Virginia's Estela Vélez de Paredez discovered it, she got hooked.

I'm Estela Vélez de Paredez.

I'm the artistic director of Furia Flamenca Dance Company.

[Flamenco music playing] ♪ [Flamenco music playing] We perform all over the DC metro area.

[Flamenco music playing] ♪ We teach to all ages and all levels.

We have performed from the big stage to the little stage to somebody's living room.

Name the festival, we've been in it, basically, but that was my way of bringing flamenco to the forefront.

[Cheering and applause] Everybody knows modern, contemporary, ballet, jazz.

Very few people know flamenco.

Flamenco is the dance of the people.

It was born in the streets.

It was born to communicate, to express, and so, it's a little bit more raw, less refined.

[Man singing in Spanish] ♪ I'm from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico was a possession of Spain until the early 1900s, and, therefore, we are heavily influenced by the Spanish culture.

I may not have chosen flamenco as the dance that I wanted to do as I was growing up, but I certainly was surrounded by it.

[Flamenco music playing] I wanted to be a prima ballerina, like most little girls, right, and that was my focus for many years.

15 years of my life I dedicated to ballet.

My teacher at the time wanted me to audition for Ballet of San Juan.

She spoke with my mother, and my mother was very honed in education and making sure that we stayed in school.

My mother decided that I wasn't going to audition, and not only was I not going to audition, but I was not going to come back to class.

So, needless to say, that was a little traumatic at the time.

In college, I took some dance classes, but I didn't go back to dance, per se.

From there, I went to law school.

From law school, I joined the Navy.

And then when I was working with the Navy, I would come home, and I would just be bored.

So, then I was like, "Well, maybe I'll go back to dance," and at that point, I went back to ballet and every art style that I could potentially do, every dance I always wanted to do.

Tap, Middle Eastern-- I tried it all.

Flamenco truly stole my heart, and I started doing both things.

Each one developed in their own way at their own time.

Through the years, I went up the ladder in my legal career.

The flamenco side of me slowly developed, and I was just a student.

I was a JAG for close to 10 years.

After that, I went to work for the Department of Veterans Affairs as an attorney.

I got the call to be a teacher in flamenco.

Then I became an artistic director of my own company.

I recently became a veterans law judge.

By day, I'm a judge.

By night, I'm a flamenco dancer.

DC has a flamenco community, just like wherever you go, and there's flamenco.

My company has anywhere from 12 to 14 performers at a time.

Our needs vary, obviously, depending on where we go.

The most crucial thing to have is a wooden floor.

We have to be able to have that percussive sound under us.

[Flamenco music playing] We always dance to live musicians.

We need to be able to hear them as we dance.

[Stomping] It gets loud.

[Flamenco music playing] ♪ Most everybody who goes and sees a dance performance has been taught to be very quiet and respectful and wait until the end, and then you applaud.

♪ We need, as flamenco dancers, energy from the audience and our audiences are not supposed to be quiet.

[Cheering and applause] For us, if somebody is not yelling and screaming through the dance, we think we're doing something wrong because we want that immediate reaction.

Part of what we do is educate, try to make sure audiences understand this is what we want you to do.

We want you to become part of the experience.

We want you to feel what we're feeling.

[Cheering and applause] [Flamenco music playing] If it's extreme sadness that we're conveying, we want you to go there with us.

[Flamenco music playing] If it's happiness, then, by all means, that, too.

[Cheering and applause] There is no bigger rush for me than to set foot on a stage and look out at an audience.

There is a feeling that I almost can't even explain.

You forget about life.

You forget about your worries.

You forget about everything that is oppressing you, and life can be really hard and throw some really bad curveballs, but when you step on that stage, you're free.

[Flamenco music playing] [Crowd cheering] Curry, voice-over: You can see Furia Flamenca Dance Company perform on April 27th at the Atlas Performing Arts Center.

Try flamenco yourself with classes by Paredez and other members of her company in DC and Fairfax, Virginia.

Go to furia-flamenca.com for details.