Flamenco!

"Explosive!" -Andalucian Times "Fiery!" -Seville Enquirer "All the passion of hot Spanish nights!" -Flamenco magazine

Since flamenco is one of the main tourist draws for southern Spain, I really wanted to find an authentic flamenco place. We saw some dancing on the street--a young group: a guitar player, a singer, and a dancer, all in their late 20s--dancing for practice and publicity and whatever tips they could get (which, with many appreciative tourists, is probably a fair amount). They were quite something, each one giving it her all, but the performances were short. Five minutes at a time, then requests for tips, which most were happy to give.

The most authentic performance you can probably get is one of the local flamenco bars where local musicians and dancers might show up sometime after midnight. I may check one of those out in my remaining days in Sevilla, but to be ensured a show (and in a pleasantly smoke-free environment), my new Aussie friend Clara and I got in on a show last night at a flamenco theater recommended by the hostel staff.

Wow. What a show! It started off with just the guitar player and the singer. The intricate finger-work of the guitarist was amazing, and combined with the woman's resonant voice in a wailing, tremulous song of lost love, I guessed, it was just beautiful. Next, a man walked on, sat down, and joined his clapping to the voice of the singer and the rhythms of the guitar. A woman walked on, dressed in a long, black flamenco dress that she could wrap up around her legs and hips to show off her feet when she started up tapping and stamping. She started slowly and quietly. It was hard to discern exactly when she added her tapping to the rhythms the others had started. It grew imperceptibly, and then she exploded! Stomping and stepping, quick swishes with her feet. The group rose together to a crescendo of strumming, stamping, clapping, and wailing, then-- crashing to a halt, with just the soft tip-tapping of the dancer's heels. Then she was a graceful swan, hands and arms twirling as she swished and spun across the platform, until she took up the staccato rhythm once again, and the musicians joined in, following her lead.

Then a break with just the guitar player--beautiful--before the rest rejoined, this time to accompany the dancing of the man. If the woman was a swan, this guy was a peacock--but don't get me wrong, this guy was one sexy peacock. He stood with chest thrown out, one hand lightly covering a hip and the other on his chest. And meanwhile his legs just flew! Tapping, stamping, and twisting, faster and faster, until his legs truly were a blur under his still upper frame. He commanded the stage. After some enthusiastic applause, he silenced it by softly but firmly beginning the tapping again, and the musicians were quick to join him. He strutted on the stage, then finished with a bang, at the peak of the rhythm, stamping with a flourish off the stage--returning some moments later, of course, to acknowledge the applause.

During the last five minutes they allowed photos, and the man and woman did what appeared to me to be a choreographed sequence of moves, but not lacking in passion and interplay. It is supposed to be a spontaneous dance, the dancers responding to the musicians, and the musicians, it seems, also responding to the dancers. Except for the ending, it did seem to be spontaneous, the musicians carefully watching and responding to the movements of the dancers, and the dancers once in awhile directing their stamping and strutting to the musicians. Never mind that it was an organized company, with shows in theater every night. I really seemed to be witnessing a bit of magic.