And right now, I'm in the city--Jerez de la Frontera--that is known as "the cradle of flamenco." It's called that because it's in the center of where flamenco comes from and where flamenco is maintained and where flamenco is important to people.
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| Yours truly, dancing bulerias. |
It's also called that because it is a singing town more than a dancing town...and the original meaning of the word "flamenco" was the singing, the "cante."
So although there are people here who value fast feet above everything else, and think that the singer is simply some kind of appendage to better show off their dancing skills, far more people in the flamenco community believe you aren't a dancer unless and until you can follow the cante.
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| Singers-cantaores-are supposed to put their soul into it. This is Antonio de la Malena. |
Following the cante means matching your dance phrase to the singer. Following the cante also means that you do NOT upstage the singer. Following the cante also means that the singer is free to lengthen or shorten a phrase at will, and the dancer must follow. The dancer is not supposed to say "make it this or that length for me so it will fit with my dance."
And THIS, dear readers, brings us to the subject of flamenco puro, which I will save for another blog.
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| As between the singer, the dancer and the guitarist, the guitarist is theoretically least important This is Malena Hijo. |
In the meantime, my programs which have flamenco in them include "Improvising Jerez-Style" (a television program) and "Two Streets and Adela" (an experimental short). My upcoming "Domino: caught in the crisis" has flamenco cante, and when we finally get the funding, we'll finish filming our project called "The Price of a Piece of Chocolate" about the childhood of a flamenco cantaor--and there will be LOTS of flamenco in that.
Our NEXT BLOG will be about the Spanish language and pronunciation in southern Spain.
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