Flamenco Dancer

Flamenco, form of song, dance, and instrumental (mostly guitar) music commonly associated with the Andalusian Roma (Gypsies) of southern Spain. (There, the Roma people are called Gitanos.) The roots of flamenco, though somewhat mysterious, seem to lie in the Roma migration from Rajasthan (in northwest India) to Spain between the 9th and 14th centuries. These migrants brought with them musical instruments, such as tambourines, bells, and wooden castanets, and an extensive repertoire of songs and dances. In Spain they encountered the rich cultures of the Sephardic Jews and the Moors. Their centuries-long cultural intermingling produced the unique art form known as flamenco.

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Masami Iida is an award-winning painter/photographer with a variety of interests that capture the beauty in our world. Masami Iida's artwork can be found throughout North America, Europe, Russia, Japan, China and Australia.

He was born just outside of Tokyo, Japan where he lived until he ventured to America to study. He attended universities in Iowa, Seattle, and New Jersey from 1982 to 1986. He received a Bachelor's degree from the Montclair State University with a major in linguistics and a minor in art. After a short return to Japan, Masami moved to Melbourne, Australia in 1987 and dedicated himself to painting. Masami has over 30 years of painting experience and has captured the beauty of the human body, nature, landscapes and wildlife on his canvas. Ten years and hundreds of painting later, in 1997 Masami took up photography and found it to be a natural extension of his artwork. Masami enjoys capturing the essence of his subject through his lens and/or on canvas. He sees beauty everywhere, even in the simplest things.

Please take some time to view Masami's intimate photographs and paintings and see for yourself the beauty he has captured.