Marina Elana
Hailed as a “dancer of distinction” by The NY Times, Marina Elana has spent the past fifteen years performing alongside the likes of Soledad Barrio, Alfonso Losa, and Pastora Galván. Marina has been a company member of the renowned Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca since 2012 and has toured with them extensively both nationally and internationally. Marina has presented her choreography in the Inside/Out Festival at Jacob's Pillow, New York International Fringe Festival, the Queensboro Dance Festival and Stanford University’s NEXT Performance Series. In 2019, Marina’s production Tattooed with Fanny Ara premiered at the historic Presidio Theatre in San Francisco to critical acclaim and was lauded by dance critic Rene Renouf as “one of the most effective flamenco performances I have ever seen.”
As an educator and community builder, Marina has taught masterclasses at Lincoln Center, The Joyce Theater, University of Southern California, UC Santa Barbara, University of Washington, Williams College, and New York University in NYC and Abu Dhabi. In the Bay Area, Marina has been an artist in residence at iMPACt Center for Arts and Dance, SAFEhouse Arts, Theatre Flamenco of San Francisco and has dedicated the past five years and counting to The People’s Conservatory in Oakland, where she helps students connect flamenco to aspects of their own cultural identities and realize that they are active participants in the preservation and evolution of flamenco’s powerful legacy.
An avid film lover, Marina enjoys a multidisciplinary approach to flamenco often incorporating technology, theatrical vignettes, and film. She graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Film & Media Studies, specializing in “Avant-Garde Aesthetics and Performance.” In 2023, Marina collaborated and starred in the short film, “Yellow Wallpaper,” which premiered at the LA Shorts International Film Festival in Los Angeles and garnered her a Best Actress in a Short Film nomination at the Phoenix Rising International Film Festival (2023).
