Paula Carmona, a girl who feels flamenco

When she speaks, Paula Carmona looks shy. She plays with the frill on her blouse, she covers her mouth with her hand and smiles nervously. This is all completely normal when you are 12 years old and a journalist is interviewing you. She insists that she doesn't like to talk, because she is not good with words. She likes to express herself through dance.

So we improvise a tablao (typical flamenco stage) in the upstairs room in El Pimpi where singer La Boterita has just launched her new record. We ask her to sing. Paula Carmona concentrates, and then, little by little her face changes and, suddenly, this small, shy girl becomes a dancer from another time. She is a gypsy woman who moves her arms and feet with flamenco spirit. This is her language.

She is still a child, turning 13 this month, and has a lot of work ahead of her if she wants to stop being a starlet and become a fully fledged artist. So far though she has made a name for herself on the flamenco circuit. Some discover her for the first time on this improvised tablao in El Pimpi and are surprised. "She shows emotion difficult to find in dancers her age," someone comments. "Keep it up, you're doing really well," singer Encarni Navarro says to encourage her. "She's got the style of a dancer from the old days," adds dancer Marina Aranda.

Paula Carmona spent the summer dancing on the stage of Los Amayas in Malaga city centre. She now only dances there on Fridays and Saturdays, as she is in the second year of secondary education at the Salesianos school. Her father, José María Carmona, explains that school always comes first, whether or not she makes it as a dancer.

José María explains how he recently found an old video of his daughter, when she could barely stand, imitating the hand gestures of a flamenco dancer on the television.

At the age of three she began to have lessons and when she was 10 she danced her first performance on stage at the Peña Juan Breva. "There were some foreigners there and they got emotional," recalls Paula. At 12 years old she met dancer Moisés Navarro at the Antonio de Canillas association. He started to teach her and soon took her with him to perform at the Tablao de Los Amayas. "She is very young but I saw many good qualities. I just have to help her hone them," says Moisés.

Paula can't describe how she dances. She moves how she feels. "If I have to raise my arms and I don't want to, I lower them," she adds. But she is clear about what she likes: "When I see someone dancing with feeling, I feel it too," she explains. "When I see that she isn't dancing what she feels, of course it's still flamenco but it does not draw me in."

Everyone agrees that Paula has an innate talent for dance, but now it is up to her to study hard to reach her full potential. It seems this is just the beginning for Paula Carmona.