Ask South Surrey flamenco teacher Jill Tunbridge about her chosen art form and she’ll be the first to tell you it’s a discipline, it’s demanding, it’s hard work.

Even experienced dancers like her can work years and still feel they’re only scratching the surface of this challenging idiom.

“You don’t just learn it, like salsa, or the foxtrot,” she said.

“It’s not just a step you master, and now you can do it.”

But the flip side of flamenco is the passion, the spontaneity and the sheer joy of something that is – more than a merging of dance and music – truly a state of mind.

That’s the upbeat feeling one gets from watching her annual Flamenco del Mar festival, which returns Friday, Sept. 11 and Saturday, Sept 12 (8 p.m. both evenings) at the Coast Capital Playhouse, 1532 Johnston Rd.

The splendidly live performances are a showcase both for students from her Spanish dance studio and special guests from the Vancouver flamenco community.

Whether they’re children or mature dancers swirling in the often-colourful costumes of this Andalusian tradition, the impression is not of a suffering for art, but a revelling in the feeling of being truly alive.

In the midst of the form and structure of flamenco, it’s clear, is an attitude that includes the freedom to enjoy oneself – even when it comes to something as simple as an ice cream cone.

That was the impulse behind one of the Flamenco del Mar troupe’s most fun – and unusual – photo sessions.

As Tunbridge tells it, she and her dancers were on their way to perform in a cultural festival in Langley when she spied a brightly-painted ice cream shop on White Rock’s Marine Drive.

“I thought we should have some photos of the dancers eating ice cream, so I got them to put on their costumes and we all descended on the store,” she said.

“Why not?”

This spirit of spontaneity and going for the gusto of life – captured in the photos by Stephen Moore and Lesley Garratt – will infuse the upcoming eighth edition of the festival.

Tunbridge, who continues to study and perfect her art in workshops in Toronto and Spain with such world-renowned flamenco dancers and teachers as Mercedes Ruiz, Evelyn Bayon, Juana Amaya and Timo Lozano, said she always looks forward to the approach of the annual event.

“Through the year, the dancers come to the studio at least two or three times a week, but what’s good about doing the show is that, for the month of August, they come a lot, perfecting the numbers.

“It motivates them and it gives them a taste of what it’s like in parts of Spain, where people are getting flamenco 24/7 – they’re learning all the time, almost by osmosis.

“There, they go to these penas, which are like cafes or coffee houses, and they drink beer and eat tapas, and the background ambience ends up being part of the song.

“It’s all part of the beauty of the dance, the beauty of the song, the beauty of Spain.”

This heightened sense of energy and passion – not to mention adrenalin – will inform Flamenco del Mar dancer Carmen di Francescantonio’s first foray into solo performance of the traditional ‘allegrias,’ which Tunbridge picks as one of the highlights of the coming show.

It will also inform the skilled and meticulously-crafted playing of guitarist-dancer Sebastien Cormier, another regular perfromer with the troupe.

But, Tunbridge said, it’s also intrinsic to the performances – and lives – of the show’s guest performers: guitarist Rodrigo (Rod) Malkin; cantaora (singer) Jafelin Helten and professional flamenco dancer Beverley Mantovani.

“Everybody that’s guesting is awesome,” Tunbridge said.

“Rod used to be an engineer for the City of Vancouver. He’d left flamenco guitar behind for 20 years. Then one day he quit his job and invested $16,000 in equipment and went for it, playing flamenco full time. He’s great and he’s making a go of it – he’s playing as much as he can. He seems to be making up for the lost time he didn’t give into his passion.”

The same applies to the Venezuelan-born Helten, Tunbridge said.

“This is the only thing she wants to do. It’s cool to hear her, because I don’t think people grasp how disciplined flamenco is, especially when it comes to the singer. The singer is king, and she’s studied years and years to become this.”

Mantovani, who, like Tunbridge, came from South Africa, was for years the principal dancer in the Luisa Cortes Spanish Dance Theatre. Recipient of the Mercedes Molina Bursary, she joined the Mercedes Molina Dance Company, and is now the driving force behind the Los Gitanos School of Spanish Dance in Tsawwassen.

Tunbridge said she has recognized in Mantovani’s dancing and teaching the branch of Spanish tradition that has rooted and flourished in South Africa.

“She does all this nice stylistically regional dance stuff that we don’t see anymore. When I saw the regional dance, I knew I had to have it as part of the festival.

“A flamenco ‘purist’ would say, ‘is that flamenco?’ – and I say, ‘I don’t care’,” she added. “That, in itself, is pure flamenco – the only pure is the impure!”

Tickets ($20 advance, $25 at the door) are available from 604-542-2096, or www.flamencodelmar.com