DANCE TALKS NOTES

DANCE TALKS NOTES
WRITINGS TO GIVE AUDIENCES A BROADER CONTEXT
FOR EXPERIENCING WORKS ON THE JOYCE STAGE.
THE ART OF FLAMENCO
Flamenco: An Introduction
By Brook Zern
G E T C L O S E R T O D A N C E
Flamenco is a style of music and dance that was created in southern Spain and emerged into public view in the
mid-Nineteenth Century. While the dance has become immensely popular worldwide, and flamenco guitar concerts
have found considerable audiences outside of Spain, flamenco song has limited appeal even in its ancestral
home region. For this reason, song is sometimes called a “minoritory” art.
In the hierarchy of flamenco’s hard-core devotees, however, flamenco song or cante holds the central position. In
small private gatherings called juergas or fiestas, the singer is the key performer. The guitarist accompanies, following
the singer’s lead, lending support with chords and filling intervals between verses with falsetas or melodic
variations. In this situation the dance – if present at all – is usually secondary or optional, emerging spontaneously
and only at the forbearance of the singer.
There are more than fifty distinct styles of flamenco song, often with numerous variants. The songs do not use
the verse-chorus-verse structure and do not recount stories. Instead, the singer chooses several short verses, each
consisting of just three to five lines, from a grab-bag of hundreds of traditional verses; more rarely, a singer may
compose or improvise his or her own verses. The verses that survive and are passed down over generations
constitute one of the world’s greatest and least known treasuries of cultural expression and emotional impact.
Musically, some songs employ the major and minor keys familiar in Western music. More often, songs use a
mode, usually termed the Phrygian, that is characteristic of Spain: a scale that preferentially uses tonal intervals
of ½, 1, 1, 1, ½, 1, 1, and is best represented by four falling chords called the Andalusian Cadence. In the key
of E, those would be A minor, G major, F major and E major.
Rhythmically, a few forms are sung in a free rhythm while some others work in a familiar 2/4 or 4/4, or in 3/4
or 6/8. But most work in a flamenco compás or rhythm that uses a repeating twelve-beat cycle of which five
beats are accented. For example, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12. (Starting the cycle on 8, or on 12, gives a different
rhythmic pulse.)
The cultural origins of flamenco songs are intensely debated today. Three styles – the martinetes/tonás, the
siguiriyas and the soleares, have a special stature or weight, and are termed cante jondo or deep song. As the
name implies, they project intense emotion and have been described as tragedy told in the first person.
The deep songs have traditionally been attributed to the rom or Gypsies, who left their ancestral homeland in
northern India and migrated westward for centuries, finally entering Andalusia in the late 1400’s, when Columbus
left and the Inquisition arrived. They were met with the suspicion and mistrust, as well as a barrage of edicts
outlawing their language, their customary trades and their wandering ways.

Some believe that the following centuries of persecution provided the tragedy and trauma that ultimately generated
the deep songs in Spain, whose verses often describe moments of terror or grief from a victim’s perspective.
They view the deep song as a monumental creation by some Gypsy families and clans in and around Jerez and
Seville – a testament, forged in the ghettos beyond the earshot of outsiders.
Other authorities dismiss that gitanista or “Gypsyist” view as a romantic backstory devoid of documentation.
They believe that flamenco simply didn’t exist before it was described in the press around 1850. Instead, they
say that many influences coalesced into flamenco song at that time.
Two later and lighter forms of flamenco song, the bulerías and the tangos, are also associated with Gypsy
genesis. The bulerías is an incessant presence in flamenco today, both in its traditional form and as a rhythmic
framework for catchy popular songs termed cancion or copla that appeal to a wider audience.
Other flamenco songs include the light and lively cantinas group – major key forms including the alegrías, the
mirabrás, the caracoles, and the romeras. The sprawling fandangos group seems to have sprung from the folky
and rhythmic fandangos de Huelva, which was “aggrandized” when sung slowly and freely. This led to the
creation of the serious and often melodramatic fandangos naturales and then to regional variants including the
granaínas, malagueñas, tarantas, cartageneras, mineras and others
Another group are the cantes de ida y vuelta, or round-trip songs, which incorporate melodies that filtered into
Latin America from Spain, acquired a distinctive Latin lilt and sway, and returned in the early Twentieth Century
as the guajiras, vidalitas, milongas and colombianas.)
Other flamenco song forms include the farruca and the garrotín, influenced by folk songs of Catalonia; the serranas
from the mountains of Andalusia; the caña and the polo, Andalusian songs influenced by Gypsy aspects of
the solea; the peteneras, which may reflect surviving Jewish influences, and the tientos, a majestic elaboration of
the tangos.
Great singers of the past include La Niña de los Peines, Manuel Torre, Antonio Chacon, Manolo Caracol, Antonio
Mairena and others. More recent figures were La Fernanda de Utrera, El Chocolate, Terremoto de Jerez, La
Paquera and the revolutionary Camarón de la Isla whose work with guitarist Paco de Lucía shattered the conventions
of the flamenco tradition. Enrique Morente was another singer who mastered the art and then made radically
different music. Among the living masters are Jose Mercé, Carmen Linares, Miguel Poveda, Manuel Moneo,
El Torta and Manuel Agujetas.
Flamenco dance is a way of interpreting all of the art’s rhythmic forms (and recently, some of the free-rhythm
forms). The dance sometimes surges up spontaneously as untrained people feel impelled to respond to the pulse
of a flamenco performance – usually a bulerías. That aspect of flamenco is often seen during the encore segment
of a troupe’s performance, when everyone including the accompanists takes a star turn.
But flamenco dance is above all a highly developed art. It seems to spring from the Spanish earth, recalling the
centuries of Moorish occupation, the simple folk dance forms of the earliest fandangos and verdiales, the dignity
of Spain’s formal court dances, the weight of poverty and oppression seen in the soleá, or the lightness, energy
and sheer joy that still shines in the alegrías.
Over time, flamenco dance evolved toward a greater majesty, as techniques became more complex and the differences
between feminine and masculine dance became codified.
The woman’s dance was more reposed, focusing on the arms and head while the feet smoothly marked the
rhythm. The arms were raised high above the head while the hands turned from the wrist in smooth twisting motions
to further accentuate the expressive line of the arms.
Violent, abrupt movement of the body was rare. The bata de cola – the flamenco dress with a long train – was
introduced. The skirt scarcely moved at all, rarely rising above the ground. The emphasis was on garbo, elegance
and grace.

Male dancers emphasized virile footwork, notably in the farruca, the garrotín and the zapateado, the only dance
form without an associated song.
The dance became increasingly theatrical and popular in the 1940’s and 50’s, as troupes led by Carmen Amaya,
Jose Greco, Pilar Lopez, the great Antonio and others conquered the world.
The advent of so-called Ballet Flamenco placed the art on an even higher level. But it also transformed the
dance, with emphasis on collective rather than individual performance. Antonio Gades and Mario Maya pioneered
the use of a company to tell a story, and this has become prevalent.
Today there are many hugely talented flamenco dancers and troupes: Eva Yerbabuena, Rocío Molina, Farruquito,
Manuela Carrasco, Soledad Barrio, and Israel Galván, among others. As traditional boundaries fall,
new realms without losing the immense power and impact that it has inherited from the great masters of the past.
These artists have unprecedented creative freedom. They also face enormous challenges.
The flamenco guitar has evolved enormously, from its progenitor Ramon Montoya to other giants including Niño
Ricardo, Melchor de Marchena, Juan Maya and Diego del Gastor. The concert tradition was long in the hands
of the great virtuoso Sabicas, his brilliant friend and admirer Mario Escudero and the more popular Carlos
Montoya, all of whom moved from Spain to New York to seek an audience for solo guitar, which was not appreciated
in Spain.
The virtuoso guitar is now the property of the incomparable creator and incredible technician Paco de Lucía and
his followers, who appear with groups and blend the tradition with elements of jazz, rock and other musical
styles. Tomatito, Pepe Habichuela and Gerardo Núñez are among his most notable musical descendants. Other
guitarists have chosen to remain closer to the tradition, including Juan Habichuela, Perico del Lunar hijo, Paco
Cepero and the late, great Moraíto.
(Brook Zern has been chasing flamenco music and dance in Spain for decades and sharing his experiences with
Americans through talks, writings, university teaching, and radio programs.)
Originally published September 2011
Lead corporate support for dance education:
Special support provided by The Walt Disney Company, Con Edison, and the Marsicano Foundation.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership
with the City Council.
Photo: Soledad Barrio by Andres Delia