Published 30 August 2026 | Community

TL;DR: Laura Ainoa Márquez, president of ASPAYM Almería, returned to flamenco dress for the first time since a spinal cord injury in 2023, taking part in the LA VOZ and Radiolé Flamenco Dress Contest from her wheelchair.

Laura returns to a beloved tradition

For three years, Laura Ainoa Márquez had kept flamenco dresses among the things she believed she might never wear again. The outfits had once been part of her life: a familiar tradition, a reason to visit fairs in Andalusia with friends and a source of happiness.

That changed when a spinal cord injury in 2023 transformed the way she moved and experienced her body. The possibility of dressing as a flamenca again seemed to belong to her past.

Then came a simple question: “Why not?”

The question led to a designer willing to find a practical way forward, a competition Laura happened to see and a phone call that ended with a decision: “We’re entering.” At the LA VOZ and Radiolé Flamenco Dress Contest, held at Teatro Apolo, Laura appeared among the participants in a flamenco dress for the first time since her injury.

A new dress for a new body

Laura was not wearing the dress that had remained in her wardrobe for years. Instead, she wore a new design created for the body she has spent the last three years learning to live with.

That distinction mattered. Her appearance was not simply about recreating a former version of her life. It was about finding a way to continue enjoying something that had always made her happy, while recognising that her circumstances had changed.

Laura took part from her wheelchair, surrounded by the colour and movement of the contest at Teatro Apolo. Her return was personal, but it also offered a clear reminder that traditions and social occasions do not have to disappear from someone’s life after a major change in mobility.

From Zaragoza to Almeria

Laura was born in Zaragoza 50 years ago, but Almeria became her home long before her injury. She arrived in the province in 2005 after studying Medicine, training as a family doctor and preparing for the competitive examinations to become a forensic doctor.

What began as a professional move gradually became a life built around the province. She worked as a forensic doctor, made friends and developed a strong sense of belonging. In her own words, Almeria had become home.

She had also made flamenco fashion part of her connection with friends and with Andalusia. The dresses were linked to fairs, trips and shared days out, rather than being an occasional costume kept for one event.

The injury in 2023

While receiving medical treatment in 2023, Laura suffered a spinal cord infarction as a side effect. The condition, described as tissue death in the spinal cord caused by a lack of blood flow, resulted in the loss of movement and sensitivity approximately from the armpits down.

It happened unexpectedly. Laura says that the possible complication had not been considered. From one day to the next, she had to begin understanding her body again and learn how to live with the changes.

The first stage of that process included almost a year at the Hospital Nacional de Paraplejicos in Toledo. It was one of the hardest periods of her life, followed by the question of where to begin again once she left hospital.

Choosing Almeria again

Laura could have returned to Zaragoza, where she was born and grew up. Instead, she chose to go back to Almeria, the place she had made her own over more than two decades.

She describes being drawn back by the province’s light, calm and sea. Her return to flamenco dress carries that same sense of continuity: not a return to the life she had before 2023, but a new way of taking part in something that still belongs to her.

For Laura, the contest turned a conversation into a visible moment of possibility. The volants were no longer just memories stored in a wardrobe. They had become part of her life again.

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