Flamenco en Sevilla

Apparently, flamenco originated in Andalusia. It is extremely popular here. When I asked students their favorite hobbies at my school in Lepe, a large number of the girls (ranging from ages 11-16) said dancing, and more specifically flamenco dancing. It is something that a lot of kids learn here starting at a very young age. There are a few flamenco hubs in Huelva. I have been to a few bars where a flamenco show was happening, sometimes a scheduled band and other times a few men and women taking turns strumming the guitar and singing while friends clapped along. The dance is more complicated than it looks at first, because to the untrained eye it initially looks like some twisting of the wrists and lifting of the arms. However, there is organized steps as well, often hidden under the long skirts traditional flamenco performers wear. There is also different types of clapping that go along with the different flamenco songs. Audience members who know the clap participate. I, for one, watch and admire.

Sevilla is known for its flamenco. You can see it everywhere when you go there--there are posters for sale, sandwich boards advertising "the best flamenco show in town," flamenco music in bars and cafes and flamenco street performers. Alex and I stopped in Sevilla for a night before heading off to Barcelona a few weeks ago. We left the center of the city, crossing the bridge to see a flamenco show that a friend recommended. Both of us ended up being so glad we took her advice.

The show was wonderful. It was in a very "Spanish" bar--AKA I think we were the only non-Spaniards there, which was all the better in my opinion. The bar was decorated with the traditional ceramic plates and bowls hanging on the walls as well as pictures of saints and the regalia of decorated flamenco performers of the past in glass-doored wooden cabinets. There were about 40 or so straight backed wooden chairs huddled in a semi-circle around the all male band of singers, a guitarist and a drummer. We had to straddle and climb over other guests to squeeze into two seats somewhere in the crowd. The place was packed and the drinks were passed. (By the way American bartenders got nothing on the Spanish, the fill the class at least 1/3 or more of the way with the liquor before pouring in the mixer). The band was great and we were really enjoying ourselves. As they wanted, various people got up and danced flamenco in front of the band. One man in the band, referred to by our waitress as "el Gordo" was clearly the alpha singer. He stood while the band played for him and sang in the dramatic way of flamenco, looking as if he was pleading to some long lost lover. (If my spanish were better, I could tell you whether this was actually the case or not).

The true intricacy of the dance makes itself evident when you get the chance to see a partner dance. The organization of it all comes out here. The couple, usually a man and a woman, dance facing each other while a band plays. Every so often in the dance, and I not knowing much about flamenco can't tell you when it is, the couple swings around each other and switches sides. There is an exact timing for this, and if one didn't know the timing the two would certainly collide. But in all of the flamenco that I have seen, the timing has been precise, and the couple dips around each other with ease and expertise. With each verse the dancing finishes with the woman usually turning into the mans arms, her back to his chest and she flings her outside arm above her head, bent at the elbow in a dramatic pose. What I found most striking about the dance is how the couple barely touches each other, yet the level of intimacy is heightened even so. Even as they dip past each other to switch sides there is a small distance between their bodies. I kept on thinking of it as marble painting. Have you ever used the marble paints in art class where you had different colors that, because of something in their oily consistency, they never mixed but swirled around each other in a interesting design? Well, this is what the dance looked like to me--and I loved it!