Flamenco Dancer · Choreographer · Artistic Director · Educator

Olivia Chacón is a San Antonio–born flamenco dancer, choreographer, artistic director and educator whose work has helped build a durable flamenco infrastructure in Central Texas. Her career joins international professional experience with the patient, long-term work of maintaining a studio, a company, original productions and new generations of dancers.

Chacón spent five years studying and performing in Sevilla and Madrid. In Sevilla, she studied with Juana Amaya and members of the Farruco family. In Madrid, she trained at Amor de Dios with artists including Concha Jareño, María Juncal, Cristóbal Reyes and Alfonso Losa. She later toured for two years across Spain, Mexico and Cyprus with the Cristóbal Reyes Compañía de Flamenco and appeared as a soloist in flamenco clubs in Spain and Germany.

After returning to Texas, Chacón opened Flamencura Music & Dance in Austin in 2010, helping establish one of the city’s first lasting spaces devoted specifically to flamenco. The studio gave students a consistent place to study technique, music and performance while providing Austin with a base for visiting artists and public programs.

In 2011, she co-founded A’lante Flamenco with music director Isaí Chacón. The company developed into one of the region’s most polished professional ensembles, known for original flamenco-theater productions that combine intellectual ambition with clear, accessible storytelling. Chacón’s stage presence is commanding and elegant, but her larger achievement is structural: she has created a framework in which ambitious work can be developed repeatedly rather than as an isolated event.

Productions including The Red Shoes: A Flamenco Fairytale, Prophecies, Desplazados and Juana: First I Dream brought flamenco into conversation with literature, migration, memory and theatrical narrative. The Austin Critics’ Table recognized Chacón as Best Dancer for The Red Shoes and honored A’lante as Best Dance Ensemble in consecutive seasons for Prophecies and Desplazados.

Teaching is equally central to her practice. Chacón has taught students of different ages and levels since 2004, emphasizing the relationship between dance and music. Her work at Flamencura and McCallum Fine Arts Academy has helped introduce young dancers to the complexity and discipline of the form. Her early mentorship of San Antonio–born dancer Mia de Lourdes, who later established a professional life in Madrid, demonstrates the reach of that investment.

Chacón’s career also maintains a long relationship between San Antonio and Austin. She returns to San Antonio as a performer and mentor, works with musicians and dancers from both cities, and brings Austin audiences into contact with artists from across Texas and Spain. She is a builder not only because she founded organizations, but because those organizations continue to produce artists, audiences and meaningful work.

---