Flamenco’s shifting fortunes show how Spain’s complex national identity continues to evolve to this day.įlamenco, which UNESCO recently recognized as part of the World’s Intangible Cultural Heritage, is a complex art form incorporating poetry, singing (cante), guitar playing (toque), dance (baile), polyrhythmic hand-clapping (palmas), and finger snapping (pitos). Over the years, many Spaniards considered flamenco a scourge of their nation, deploring it as an entertainment that lulled the masses into stupefaction and hampered Spain’s progress toward modernity. Indeed, the world’s love of flamenco has long created problems within Spain, where the performance was once considered a vulgar and pornographic spectacle. Inside Spain, however, the relationship between the flamenco art form and Spanish national identity has been fraught for more than a century. Indeed, the world outside Spain often stereotypes the nation as inhabited by flamenco dancers, singers, and guitar players who are so “passionate,” they have little time to engage in the day-to-day world of the mundane. For proof of its currency in pop culture, look no further than Toy Story 3: Buzz Lightyear is mistakenly reset in “Spanish mode,” and becomes a passionate Spanish flamenco dancer. and elsewhere, flamenco is a pervasive marker of Spanish national identity. The text beckons us to “fall in love with Spain-and Bates’ ‘Flamenca!’” and encourages us to discover “fashion’s new passion in bedspreads … each bedspread smoldering with two tones of a hot-blooded color.” The dancer, in turn, possesses a complex technique and the interpretation of the baile varies according to the individual interpreter.During the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair, an advertisement for the Bates textile company in the Pavilion of Spain’s official guide book featured a fetchingly posed young woman, rose in mouth, with a ruby red bedspread draped over her body to form the likeness of a flamenco dress. Cante can not only be accompanied by the guitar, but also by castanets, a percussion box known as “el cajón”, hand-clapping and heel-clicking, whose rhythms are broken down into diverse “palos” or varieties (toná, soleá, seguiriya, fandango, sevillanas, etc.) based on factors such as the song’s character or origin. There are a myriad of figures in the world of flamenco whose endeavours in the art have brought them great success, namely, Antonio Gades, Enrique Morente, Eva La Yerbabuena, La Niña de la Puebla, Joaquín Cortés, Antonio Canales, Rafael Amargo, Antonio “El Bailarín”, Camarón de la Isla, Cristina Hoyos or Carmen Amaya, just to name a few.īoth song and dance (cante and baile) can be express a multitude of varied sentiments. Flamenco has become a true identity for numerous communities, such as the gypsy ethnic group, where it is transmitted from generation to generation through dynasties of artists, families, flamenco clubs, numerous important festivals and schools and tablaos, whose numbers are growing each year. This cultural expressive vehicle with two centuries of history (some experts have traced its origins in the 18th century, when its popularity began to grow) is the most emblematic of Andalusian folklore and the most renowned form of artistic expression in Spain. This art form combines vocal music, dance and musica accompaniment (called cante, baile and toque) rooted fundamentally in Andalusia and other regions like Murcia and Extremadura. Flamenco is a form of popular artistic expression representing a long-standing tradition that appears on the UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
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