Artist Laura Sánchez’s 2½-year-old daughter was born with multiple disabilities caused by a brain injury during childbirth. “I woke up in a world that was transformed, and which I knew nothing about,” said Sánchez, the mother of two. She uses flamenco dance, bilingual spoken word, film, and more to explore her experience as an immigrant mother of a child with disabilities in “Welcome to Holland!?” at the Dance Complex in Cambridge March 16 and 17.
Age: 37
Making a living: Sánchez performs, produces, and teaches flamenco. She teaches at the Dance Complex and has collaborated with Boston Ballet, José Mateo Ballet Theatre, and other presenters. She applies for grants and residencies and has received support from the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Boston Center for the Arts, and other organizations.
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Originally from: Cádiz, Spain. She and her husband moved here for his job as a senior systems engineer in 2014.
Lives in: Everett
Studio: “The Dance Complex is like my home.”
How she started: Sánchez studied business and marketing in Madrid and worked in the field for several years, but she almost always danced. She left her marketing job in 2018 to create full time.
What she makes: While working on a professional certificate in expressive arts at Lesley University, Sánchez developed Expressive Flamenco, using dance, poetry, and other mediums as avenues to healing.
She practices what she preaches. “After the birth of my second child, my life was transformed because of the trauma,” she said. Without family in the United States, she scrambled for support. She found solace in a piece penned in 1987 by “Sesame Street” writer Emily Perl Kingsley about raising a child with disabilities, also titled “Welcome to Holland.” Kingsley and Sánchez play with the metaphor of a traveler expecting to arrive in Italy, only to land in Holland.
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Sánchez said her performance “takes parts of my life where I feel unseen and transforms them into something that can be seen.”
Why she does it: “I need to. It’s part of my soul. Having to take care of others implies giving up many things. This is the only thing that I’ve held onto. Also, now I’m the mother of two kids. How can I be the best version of myself for them?”
How she works: Words play an important role in her process.
“If I have a conversation with another mother, or if there’s some kind of emotion inside that I need to transform, I get in the studio, I listen to whatever music inspires me, and then start putting things together and talk and talk … because for almost a year and a half, I wasn’t able to verbalize my life.”
Advice for artists: “Listen to yourself and be patient with the process.”
WELCOME TO HOLLAND!?
At Dance Complex, 536 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge. Saturday, March 16, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, March 17, at 7 p.m. Tickets $15-$50. www.dancecomplex.org/events
Cate McQuaid can be reached at catemcquaid@gmail.com. Follow her on Instagram @cate.mcquaid.