Where can you witness the best flamenco? Surprisingly, the answer often enough is: "In New York City!" That's because the best practitioners of this passionate art form spend a good part of their career performing for high pay at venues outside their home country.
And there's another aspect. Tourists visiting Spain are often lured to third-rate performances, tour operators knowing that the average visitor can't distinguish between the good and the mediocre.
There is far more to this constantly-evolving art than swirling skirts, flashy foot-stamping, and throbbing guitars. Its true home is in southern Spain, particularly in the area of Seville, Cadiz and Huelva.
If you visit that region, check out what's on at the various "penas", or flamenco clubs. These are where local enthusiasts gather and where you are likely to catch authentic flamenco song and dance. Also, particularly in summer, many towns hold flamenco festivals. Be warned: they start late and carry on until the early hours.
Much of the passion of flamenco reflects the sufferings of the gypsies and the poor of southern Spain down the centuries. Its origins are complex, with roots in the many cultures that have made their mark on Andalusia. Gypsies are believed to have started entering Spain from the eighth century, bringing with them the influences of Indian and Byzantine music. Their song and dance mixed with those of Arabs and Sephardic Jews and with Christian religious and folk music.
Jews, Moslems and gypsies had one thing in common, their persecution by the Kingdom of Castile, and this helped form flamenco, making it the voice of the oppressed.
Aficionados (enthusiasts) divide flamenco singing into three categories, cante jondo, intermedio, and chico. Cante jondo, literally deep song, has been compared with the blues of America's blacks. Singers of cante jondo seem to tear at their own entrails as they strive to express their anguish and communicate it to their listeners.
A genuine performance is a rare experience, for the truly emotional, magical moments only occur when duende (roughly, the spirit) moves the singer.
Intermedio is less profound flamenco and easier to perform. Chico (small) is happy, sensuous and frivolous.
Sadly, what you are most likely to see and hear in or out of Spain is pop flamenco, a mish-mash of the above three forms with non-flamenco pop rhythms thrown in and with little feeling or depth.
At any fiesta, however, you can enjoy the sevillana. This is a light-hearted, fast-moving dance. Purists don't take it seriously, but it's lots of fun.
For an idea of what serious flamenco is all about, listen to the earlier work of wild-living singer Camaron de la Isla, regarded as a true phenomenon of cante jondo until drugs and alcohol got to him. Or delight to the music of the great guitar maestro Paco de Lucia, on the cutting edge of modern flamenco.
Journalist and author David Baird specialises in books about Spain, fact and fiction. His book Between Two Fires - Guerrilla War in the Spanish sierras has won praise from leading historians. For a humorous insight into life in rural Spain, read Sunny Side Up. His latest books are works of fiction: Typhoon Season, a nerve-tingling thriller set in Hong Kong, and Don't Miss The Fiesta!, passion and adventure played out in southern Spain. More information at the Maroma Press website, http://maromapress.wordpress.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment