PART THREE

So much happened at once: Gypsy youth who had been exposed to the hard rock music of the 1960s began to play electric instruments and rock-influenced music; this made possible flamenco with electric bass, flutes, drums, and synthesizers. Marijuana and cocaine replaced alcohol in many flamenco circles. Gypsies began to speak out about the centuries-long persecution of their race. Andalucians, long the underdogs in Spain, cried out for their rights. All of Spain entered a new stage of political awareness with the demise of Franco. All of this led to the appearance of political and social issues as themes of flamenco songs. The epic Story of gypsy persecution was told by cantaor, El Lebrijano in his theatrical production and record "Persecucion" and J.S. Menese followed with the record "Andalucia: 40 Anos" (Andalucia: the last 40 years).

Mario Maya, created the theatrical dance productions. "Camelamos Naquerar" (gypsy language for, "We want to speak") and "Ay!" Other avante-garde dance productiong followed, and in 1982, dancer Antonio Gades used flamenco in a dance version of Garcia Lorca's "Bodas de Sangre" ("Blood Wedding"), which later became an internationally acclaimed film. Also in 1982, the cantaor Enrique Morente sang flamenco in a production of "Oedipus Rex" in the Roman ruins of Merida, Spain.

During the 1970s, the phenomenon of the festival emerged and exploded in popularity. Such concerts, held outdoors in a bullring or stadium, or indoors in a theater or sports arena, features generally eight to fifteen cantaores (occasionally as many as twenty-five), who sing three songs each, accompanied by one of three guitarists. Frequently a dancer will be featured in one or two numbers at some point in the evening, often at the end. Festivals normally begin around 11:00 p.m. and often last until dawn. Held only during the summer, these festivals became so popular that, by 1981, there was one almost every night somewhere in Andalucia, with attendance of two or three thousand people at each one. Flamenco artists could finally make a decent living, and flamenco reached a broader audience than ever before. But it was a new environment for flamenco. Intimacy and spontaneity were out, professionalism and commercialism were in. An artist performed not when he felt overwhelmed by the need, but when his turn came up. Since duende does not appear on command, it stands little chance in the festivals.

Related to the commercialism of the festivals is the commercialism of the recording industry. Beginning about 1970, a flood of flamenco records began to pour forth, and the popular cantaores had to frantically search for new material to record. Enter song writers. At this point, instead of singing traditional melodies and verses, flamenco artists were singing catchy melodies and trite love songs with a chorus after each verse, gimmicky introductions and orchestrations. A song became a hit one day and was passe the next. Today, it seems that each cantaor follows the same pattern. His first record features primarily good traditional flamenco and establishes his reputation. The second recording contains traditional flamenco, but has an extra dose of popular bulerias and tangos; the third record is mostly cuples, composed bulerias and tangos; the fourth record is orchestrated, and the singer may even croon a few pop songs. A singer or a guitarist can only have so much traditional or high quality original flamenco in him, it seems, and then he has to turn to gimmicks to sell more records.

The flamenco life style is gradually disappearing. Flamenco artists do not often live from juergas as they did in the past. Young artists do not particularly like the hard work of the juergas and prefer to look for work in the festivals, in the tablaos, or in recording. Rural life is being replaced by urban life. More gypsies are joining the mainstream of Spanish life, marrying outside their race and gradually being assimilated. Yet, surprisingly, the distinction between gypsy and non-gypsy flamenco still exists. Gypsies still tend to prefer and excel in their cantes, the bulerias, tangos, siguiriyas and soleares, while the non-gypsies often prefer and perform better the many fandangos styles.

Gypsies have their own way of dancing and playing guitar as well. One significant difference between the "opera" period and the present is that it was the payo or non-gypsy who corrupted flamenco in the past, but today it is the gypsies who are leading flamenco into new areas. Paco de Lucia and Manolo Sanlucar, neither of whom is gypsy, started the guitar revolution, but now it is gypsy guitarists like Raimundo Amador and Diego Cortes who are using flamenco in their rock groups. It is Camaron, Lebrijano, Lole and her family, Los Montoya, who are revolutionizing the cante and it is Mario Maya who is the vanguard of change in the dance.

Not only have the gypsy-Andaluz distinctions survived, but there is still, miraculously in this age of mass media, some stylistic differences between the flamenco from different parts of Andalucia. It is possible, for example to distinguish guitar styles from Jerez and Sevilla.

In the 1980s, we find a flamenco that is very theatrical and commercial and that explores new channels of expression in rock, jazz, theater, film, and complex instrumentation. There have been incredible technical advances in all aspects of the art. Along with technique comes commercial exploitation. In the "opera" period, Manolo Caracol and La Nina de lo Peines were capable of singing great flamenco but chose to sing operatic fandangos and cuple with orchestral accompaniment. Today, Chiquetete and La Sui do the same thing, but the reigning flamenco forms are the much abused bulerias, tangos, and rumbas, with almost everybody singing cuples in these rhythms. The critics say that traditional flamenco is being lost, ruined, and left behind.

Does some of this sound familiar? It should, for the scenario is very similar to that of the end of the 1800s and later, the opera period. The same thing probably happened many times before, with the precursors of flamenco. Flamenco was created by successive invasions of external influences, whether Arabs or rock groups. Critics have always felt that flamenco was at its best in an earlier period and is corrupted in the present. Ironically, the "pure" flamenco of the past is, in reality, nothing but the corruption of an even earlier state of "purity." The best flamenco we have today is the product of many such episodes of corruption. Flamenco seems to go in cycles of obsession with purity alternating with periods of revolution and decadence. It may be that periods of revolution and decadence are essential in order to disrupt the stagnation of routine and orthodoxy, to inject new life blood into the art form, and to attract a new audience as the old one gets older.

In the cafe cantante period, the cante was the most significant element in flamenco and made great advances. In the opera period, it was the baile that made the greatest technical advances and was the focus of attention, especially internationally. Throughout the history of flamenco, with minor exceptions, the guitar played a secondary role and stayed in the background. In the modern era, however, the guitar is receiving full attention, both in Spain and in other countries. Guitar solo record albums and concert performances were tremendously popular in the 1950-1960 period. Guitar techniques and musical sophistication have advanced very significantly in the last twenty years. But the real change, in the era of the guitar, is in the attitudes of performers and aficionados. Two examples. In 1977, in a festival outside of Malaga, the guitarist Paco Cepero received as many ovations for his guitar playing as did Camaron de la Isla, the singer Cepero was accompanying; many in the audience felt that was the reason Camaron cut short his performance and stalked off stage. In 1982 while Enrique Melchor, son of Melchor de Marchena, was playing for the singer, Turronero, in the middle of a profound tientos, Melchor played a very fast scale run that was originally recorded by Paco de Lucia, and the audience applauded wildly. Turronero grabbed Melchor by the shoulder of his jacket, dragged him from his chair, and forced him to take a bow. Such a thing would have been unheard of ten years ago.

Today, the guitar and flamenco are obviously out of control, but flamenco is amazingly resilient. It follows fads until they go too far, and then it snaps back and goes in a different direction. It bends, but does not break. It survives.

The roots of flamenco evolved in southern Spain from many sources: Morocco, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Greece and other parts of the Near East and Far East. How exactly they came together as flamenco is a source of great debate and obscurity, though most authorities believe the roots of the music came with gypsies arriving in the fifteenth century. In the following century, it fused with elements of Arab and Jewish music in the Andalucian mountains, where Jews, Muslims and "pagan" gypsies had taken refuge from the forced conversions and clearances effected by the Catholic kings and church. The main flamenco centers and families are to be found today in quarters and towns of gypsy and refugee origin, such as Alcala del Rio, Utrera, Jerez, and Cadiz, and the Triana barrio of Sevilla.

There are two theories about the origins of the name flamenco. One contends that Spanish Jews migrated through trade to Flanders where they were allowed to sing their religious chants unmolested and that these chants became referred to as flamenco by the Jews who stayed in Spain. The other is that the word is a mispronunciation of the Arabic words felag (fugitive) and mengu (peasant), a plausible idea, as Arabic was a common language in Spain at the time.

Flamenco aficionados enjoy heated debate about the purity of their art and whether it is more validly performed by a gitano (gypsy) or a payo (non-gypsy). Certainly, flamenco seems to have thrived, enclosed, preserved and protected by the oral tradition of the gypsy clans. Its power, and the despair which its creation overcomes, has emerged from the precarious and vulnerable lives of a people surviving for centuries at the margins of society. Flamenco reflects a passionate need to preserve their self-esteem.

These days, there are as many acclaimed payo as gitano flamenco artists. However, the concept of an active inheritance is crucial. The veteran singer Fernanda de Utrera, one of the great voices of "pure flamenco", was born in 1923 into a gypsy family in Utrera, one of the cantaora centers. She was the granddaughter of the legendary singer "Pinini", who had created her own individual flamenco forms, and with her younger sister Bernarda, also a notable singer, inherited their flamenco with their genes. Even the members of Ketama, the Madrid-based flamenco-rock group, come from two gypsy clans - the Sotos and Carmonas.

Although flamenco's exact origins are obscure, it is generally agreed that its "laws" were established in the nineteenth century. Indeed, from the mid-nineteenth into the early-twentieth centuries flamenco enjoyed a legendary "Golden Age", the tail-end of which is preserved on some of the earliest 1930's recordings. The original musicians found a home in the cafe cantantes, traditional taverns which had their own group of performers (cuadros). One of the most famous was the Cafe de Chinitas in Málaga, immortalized by the Granada-born poet Garcia Lorca. In his poem A las Cinco de la Tarde (At five in the afternoon), Lorca claimed that flamenco is deeply related to bullfighting, not only sharing root emotions and passions, flashes of erratic genius, but because both are possible ways to break out of social and economic marginality.

Just such a transformation happened in 1922 when the composer Manuel de Falla, the guitarist Andrés Segovia and the poet García Lorca were present for a legendary Concurso de Cante Jondo. A gypsy boy singer, Manolo Caracol, reportedly walked all the way from Jerez and won the competition with the voice and the flamboyant personality that was to make him a legend throughout Spain and South America. The other key figure of this period, who can be heard on a few recently re-mastered recordings, was Pastora Pavon, known as La Nina de Los Peines, and popularly acclaimed as the greatest woman flamenco voice of twentieth century.

In addition to café cantantes, flamenco surfaced, as it does today, at fiestas, in bars or tablaos, and at juergas, informal private parties. The fact that the Andalucian public are so knowledgeable and demanding about flamenco means that musicians, singers and dancers found even at the most humble local club or festival are usually very good indeed.

The flamenco performance is filled with pauses. The singer is free to insert phrases seemingly on the spur of the moment. The guitar accompaniment, while spontaneous, is precise and serves one single purpose - to mark the compas (measures,timing,rhythm) of a song and organize rhythmical lines. Instrumental interludes which are arranged to meet the needs of the cantaor (as the creative singer is called) not only catch the mood and intention of the song and mirror it, but allow the guitarist to extemporize what are called falsetas (short variations) at will. When singer and guitarist are in true rapport the intensity of a song develops rapidly, the one charging the other, until the effect can be overwhelming.

The flamenco guitar is of lighter weight than most acoustic guitars and often has a pine table and pegs made of wood rather than machine heads. This is to produce the preferred bright responsive sound which does not sustain too long (as opposed to the mellow and longer sustaining sound of classical guitar). If the sound did sustain, particularly in fast pieces, chords would carry over into each other.

The guitar used to be simply an accompanying instrument. Originally the singers themselves played , but in the early decades of this century it began developing as a solo form, absorbing influences from classical and Latin American traditions. The greatest of these early guitarists was Ramon Montoya, who revolutionized flamenco guitar with his harmonizations and introduced tremolo and a whole variety of arpeggios - techniques of right-hand playing. The classical guitarist, Andres Segovia, was another influential figure; he began his career playing flamenco in Granada. [ I never heard of this before! Edit.] Then in the 1960s came the two major guitarists of modern times, Paco de Lucia, (more about him later), and Manolo Sanlucar.

Solo guitarists, these days, have immediately identifiable sounds and rhythms: the highly emotive Pepe Habichuela and Tomatito, for example, or the unusual rhythms of younger players like Ramon el Portugues, Enrique de Melchor and Rafael Riqueni.


It is essential for an artist to invoke a response, to know they are reaching deep into the emotional psyche of their audience. They may achieve the rare quality of duende - total emotional communication and involvement with their audience, and the mark of great flamenco of whatever style or generation. Duende is an ethereal quality. It is moving, profound even when expressing happiness. It is mysterious, but nevertheless felt ... a quality that stops listeners in their tracks. Many of those listeners are intensely involved, for flamenco is not just a music, for many it is a way of life, a philosophy that influences daily activities. A flamenco is not only a performer but anyone who is actively and emotionally involved in this unique philosophy.

For the musicians, this fullness of expression is integral to their art. This is why for as many famous names as one can list, there are many, many other lesser known musicians whose work is startlingly good. Not every superb flamenco musician gets to be famous, or to record, for flamenco thrives most in live performance. Exhilarating, challenging, and physically stimulating, it is an art form which allows its exponents huge scope to improvise while obeying certain rules. Flamenco guitarist Juan Martin has remarked that "in microcosm it imitates Spanish society - traditional on the outside but within, incredible anarchy".

There is a classical repertoire of more than sixty flamenco songs (cantes) and dances (bailes) - some solos, some group numbers, some with instrumental accompaniment, others a capella. These different forms of flamenco are grouped in "families" according to more or less common melodic themes. The most common beat cycle is twelve - like the blues. Each piece is executed by juxtaposing a number of complete musical units called coplas. Their number varies depending on the atmosphere the cantaor wishes to establish and the emotional tone he wish to convey. A song such as a cante por solea may take a familiar 3/4 rhythm, divide phrases into 4/8 measures, and then fragmentally sub-divide again with voice ornamentation on top of that. The resulting complexity and the variations between similar phrases constantly undermines repetition, contributing greatly to the climactic and cathartic structure of each song.

Scratch a hot night in Andalucia, even on the much maligned Costa del Sol, and you'll find flamenco. "You carry it inside you", said a man in his sixties sitting next to me in the local municipal stadium in downtown Marbella. There was not a tourist in sight, it was 2am, the sky was deep blue-black, patterned with stars, the stadium cluttered with families enjoying the most pleasant hours of the Andaluz summer, flapping their fans until dawn, children asleep on laps.

Flamenco is undoubtedly the most important musical-cultural phenomenon in Spain, and over the past decade or so it has experienced a huge resurgence in popularity, and a profile that has reached out far beyond its Andalucian homeland. It owes its new-found influence in part, perhaps, to the southern-dominated socialist governments - Prime Minister Felipe Gonzolez is from Sevilla, as are many of his associates. In part perhaps, it is down to Spain's unconscious desire, now it is part of the EC, to establish a national identity that challenges European stereotypes. The sanitized kitsch flamenco, all frills and castanets, exploited as an image of tourist Spain during the Franco period, has been left far behind by a new age expressing the vitality and attitudes of a younger generation of flamenco clans.

In the 1980s, the Spanish press hailed Ketama (named after a Moroccan village famed for its hashish) as creators of the music of the "New Spain" after their first album which fused flamenco with rock and Latin salsa. Since then they have pushed the frontiers of flamenco still further by recording Songhai, an album collaborating with Malian kora player Toumani Diabate and British bassist Danny Thompson. Blues de la Frontera (Frontier Blues) the first disc of Pata Negra ("black leg" - the succulent tasty bit of an Andalucian leg of smoked ham - and an everyday term used for anything good), caused an equal sensation.

This flamenco revival of the '80s and '90s is no longer confined to the purists who kept old-time flamenco alive in their penas or clubs. On radio and on cassettes blaring from market stalls right across the country you hear the typical high-pitched treble tones of commercial flamenco singers like Tijeritas. The European success of the flamenco-rumba of the Gipsy Kings, a high profile gypsy group from southern France, has further opened and prepared the ear of European popular audiences for something more powerful. Rumba, a Latin form, has come back to Spain from Latin America and so is known as a music of ida y vuelta ("go and return"), one of the many fusions of the Spanish music taken to the New World with the Conquistadors and their descendants, where it has mixed with African and other elements, before making its way back again .

The impetus began at the end of the 1970s, with the innovations of guitarist Paco de Lucia and, especially, the great, late singer, El Camaron de la Isla. These were musicians who had grown up learning from their flamenco families but whose own musical tastes have embraced international rock, jazz and blues. Paco de Lucia blended jazz and salsa onto the flamenco sound. Camaron, simply, was an inspiration - and one whose own idols (and fans) included Chick Corea and Miles Davis, as well as flamenco artists.

One of flamenco's great achievements has been to sustain itself while providing much of the foundation and inspiration for new music emerging in Spain today. In the 1950s and 60s, rock 'n' roll displaced traditional Spanish music, as it did indigenous music in many parts of the world. In the 1980s,however, flamenco re-invented itself, gaining new meaning and a new public through the music of Paco de Lucia, who mixed in jazz, blues and salsa, and later, groups like Pata Negra and Ketama, who brought in more rock influences. Purists hated these innovations but, as Jose "El Sordo" (DeafOne) Soto, Ketama's main singer, explained, they were based on "the classic flamenco” that we had been singing and listening to since birth. We just found new forms in jazz and salsa. There are basic similarities in the rhythms, the constantly changing harmonies and improvisations. Blacks and gypsies have suffered similar segregation so our music has a lot in common."

Paco de Lucia, who made the first moves, is the best known of all contemporary flamenco guitarists, and reached new audiences through his performance in Carlos Saura's films, Blood Wedding and Carmen, along with the great flamenco dancers, Cristina Hoyos and Antonio Gades. Paco, who is a non-gypsy, won his first flamenco prize at the age of 14 and went on to accompany many of the great traditional singers, including a long partnership with Camaron de la Isla. He started forging new sounds and rhythms for flamenco following a trip to Brazil, where he fell in love with bossa nova, and in the 1970s he established a sextet with electric bass, Latin percussion, and, perhaps most shocking, flute and saxophone from Jorge Pardo. Over the past twenty years he has worked with jazz-rock guitarists like John McLaughlin and Chick Corea, while his own regular band, featuring singer Ramon de Algeciras, remains one of the most original and distinctive sounds on the flamenco scene.

Other artists experimented, too, throughout the 1980s. Lola y Manuel updated the flamenco sound with original songs and huge success. Jorge Pardo followed Paco's jazz direction. Salvador Tavora and Mario Maya staged flamenco-based spectacles and Enrique Morente and Juan Pena El Lebrijanoboth worked with Andalucian orchestras from Morocco, while Amalgama worked with southern Indian percussionists, revealing surprising stylistic unities. Another interesting crossover came with Paco Pena's 1991 Misa Flamenca recording, a setting of the Catholic Mass to flamenco forms with the participation of established singers like Rafael Montilla "El Chaparro" from Pena's native Cordoba, and a classical academy chorus.

The more commercially successful crossover with rock and blues, pioneered by Ketama and Pata Negra, has become known, in the 1990s, as nuevo flamenco. This "movement" is associated particularly with the label Nuevos Medios andin Andalucia, and also Madrid, where many of the bands are based, is a challenging, versatile, and musically incestuous new scene, with musicians guesting at each others' gigs and on each others' records.

The music is now a regular sound at nightclubs, too, through the appeal of young singers like Aurora, whose salsa-rumba song "Besos de Caramelo",written by Antonio Carmona of Ketama, was the first 1980s number to crack the pop charts, and Martirio (Isabel Quinones Gutierrez), one of the most flamboyant personalities on the scene, who appears dressed in lace mantilla and shades, like a cameo from a Pedro Almodavar film, and sings songs with ironical, contemporary lyrics about life in the cities. In general, the new songs are more sensual and erotic than the traditional material, expressing a pain, suffering and love worth dying for.

Martirio's producer, Kiko Veneno, who wrote Camaron's most popular song,"Volando Voy", is another artist who has brought a flamenco sensitivity to Spanish rock music. Other contemporary bands and singers to look out for on the scene include La Barbers del Sur (who add a dash of salsa), Wili Gimenez and Raimundo Amador, and Radio Tarifa, who mix Arabic and pop sounds onto a flamenco base.

Flamenco songs often express pain, and with a fierceness that turns that emotion inside out. Generally, the voice closely interacts with improvising guitar, the two inspiring each other, aided by the jaleo: the hand-clapping, palmas, finger-snapping, pitos, and shouts from participants at certain points in the song. This jaleo sets the tone by creating the right atmosphere for the singer or dancer to begin, and bolsters and appreciates the talent of the artist as they develop the piece.

Aficionados will shout encouragement, most commonly "Ole!" - when an artist is getting deep into a song, but also a variety of stranger-sounding phrases. A stunning piece of dancing may, for example, be greeted with "Áviva la maquina escribir!" (long live the typewriter), as the heels of the dancer move so fast they sound like a machine; or the cry may be "Água!"(water), for the scarcity of water in Andalucia has given the word a kind of glory.

It is an essential characteristic of flamenco that a singer or dancer takes certain risks, by putting into their performance feelings and emotions which arise directly from their own life experience, exposing their own vulnerabilities. Aficionados tend to acclaim a voice that gains effect from surprise and startling moves than one governed by recognized musical logic. Vocal prowess or virtuosity can be deepened by sobs, gesticulation and an intensity of expression that can have a shattering effect on an audience. Thus pauses, breaths, body and facial gestures of anger and pain transform performance into cathartic events. Siguiriyas which date from the Golden Age, and whose theme is usually death, have been described as cries of despair in the form of a funeral psalm. In contrast there are many songs and dances such as tangos, sevillanas and fandangos which capture great joy for fiestas.

The sevillana originated in medieval Sevilla as a spring country dance, with verses improvised and sung to the accompaniment of guitar and castanets (which are rarely used in other forms of flamenco). El Pali (Francisco Palacios), who died in 1988, was the most well-known and prolific sevillana musician. His unusually gentle voice and accompanying strummed guitar combining an enviable musical pace with a talent for composing popular poetic lyrics. In the last few years dancing sevillanas has become popular in bars and clubs throughout Spain, but their great natural habitats are Sevilla's April Feria and the annual pilgrimage to El Rocio. It is during the Sevilla feria that most new recordings of sevillanas emerge.

Among the best contemporary singers are the aforementioned Fernanda and Bernarda de Utrera, Enrique Morente, El Cabrero, Juan Pena El Lebrijano, then Sorderas, Fosforito, Jose Menese and Carmen Linares. However, one of the most popular and commercially successful singers of modern flamenco was the extraordinary El Camaron de la Isla, (the "shrimp" of the "isle" de Leonnear his Cadiz home), who died in 1992.

Collaborating with the guitarists Paco and Pepe de Lucia, and subsequently, Tomatito, Camaron raised cante jondo, the virtuoso "deep song", to a new art. His high-toned voice had a corrosive, rough-timbered edge, cracking at certain points to release a ravaged core sound. His incisive sense of rhythm coupled with almost violent emotional intensity, made him the quintessential singer of the times.

Most popular images of flamenco dance - twirling bodies in frilled dresses, rounded arms complete with castanets - are Sevillanas, the folk dances performed at fiestas, and, in recent years, on the disco and nightclub floor. "Real" flamenco dance is something rather different and, like the music, can reduce the onlooker to tears in an unexpected flash, a cathartic point after which the dance dissolves. What is so visually devastating about flamenco dance is the physical and emotional control the dancer has over the body. The way the head is held, the tension of the torso and the way it allows the shoulders to move, the shapes and angles of seemingly elongated arms, and the feet, which move from toe to heel, heel to toe, creating rhythms. These rhythms have a basic set of moves and timings but they are improvised as the piece develops and through interaction with the guitarist.

Flamenco dance dates back to about 1750 and, along with the music, moved from the streets and private parties into the cafes cantantes at the end of the nineteenth century. This was a great boost for the dancers' art, providing a home for professional performers, where they could inspire each other. It was here that legendary dancers like El Raspao and El Estampio began to develop the spellbinding footwork and extraordinary moves that characterizes modern flamenco dance. While women adopted for the first time the flamboyant hata de cola, the glorious long-trained dresses, cut high at the front to expose their fast moving ankles and feet.

Around 1910, flamenco dance had moved into Spanish theaters, and dancers like La Nina de los Peines and La Argentina were major stars. They mixed flamenco into programs with other dances and also made dramatic appearances at the end of comic plays and silent movie programs. Flamenco opera was soon established, interlinking singing, dancing and guitar solos in comedies with a local flamenco flavor.

In 1915 the composer Manuel de Falla composed the first flamenco ballet, El Amor Brujo (Love the Magician), for the dancer Pastora Imperio. LaArgentina, who had established the first Spanish dance company, took her version of the ballet abroad in the 1920s, and with her choreographic innovations flamenco dance came of age, working as a narrative in its own right. Another key figure in flamenco history was Carmen Amaya, who from the1930s to the 60s took flamenco dance on tour around the world, and into the movies.

In the 1950s, dance found a new home in the tablaos, the aficionado's bars which became enormously important as places to serve out a public apprenticeship. More recently the demanding audiences at local and national fiestas have played a part. Artistic developments were forged in the 1960s by Matilde Coral, who updated the classic dance style, and in the 1970s by Manuela Carrasco, who had such impact with her fiery foot movement. She could continue a rhythm for an intense and seemingly impossible period, that this new style was named after her (Manuelas).

Manuela Carrasco set the tone for the highly individual dancers of the 1980s and 1990s, such as Mario Maya and Antonio Gades. These two dancers and choreographers have provided a theatrically inspired staging for the dance, most significantly by extending the role of a dance dialog and story - often reflecting on the potency of love and passion, their intrigue, dangers, and destructiveness.

Gades has led his own company on world tours, but it is his influence on film which has been most important. He had appeared with Carmen Amaya in "Los Araros" in 1963 but in the 1980s began his own trilogy with film-maker Carlos Saura: "Boda de Sangre" (Lorca's play, Blood Wedding), "Carmen" (an interpretation of the opera), and "El Amor Brujo". The films featured Paco de Lucia and his band, and the dancers Laura del Sol and Christina Hoyos - one of the great contemporary dancers, who has herself created a superb ballet, "Sueños Flamencos" (Flamenco Dreams).

Aside from the great companies and personalities of flamenco dance, there are an enormous number of local dancers all over Andalucía, whose dancing brings flamenco to life, and whose moves can be sheer poetry.

Thanks for posting this interesting material!
Haven't gotten to reading it yet though ...

You are welcome, Ed.

Doog

thanks for posting!

at_leo_87 wrote:thanks for posting!

You are welcome. I found the information to be quite interesting.

Doog