Flamenco: fading away
p2pnet news | Music:- Years ago, before I moved to Canada from England, I lived in Kent and I used to yo-yo by train back and forth to London.
On my way home, one evening, I was sitting in a carriage with a really nice guy of about my age who, when we started talking, told me he was from Spain.
What did he do? He played flamenco guitar.
At the time, jazz – particularly if it had Cuban roots – and rock comprised 90% of my music staple and although I knew what flamenco was, I’d never really listened to it. But meeting Paco Peña, now a world-renowned artist, inspired me to pay a lot more attention to it.
I loved it and obviously, the memory has stayed with me and much later, when I’d moved permanently to Canada, my wife, Liz, and I spent quite a bit of time working in Spain, mainly in Madrid, where we’d visit the flamenco taverns, of which there were many.
That was more than ten years ago and in the same time frame, says Associated Press, Madrid boasted 20 flamenco taverns where music lovers could experience the, “furious, rhythmic tapping of a dancer’s heels, the thundering chords of a classical guitar, a singer’s soulful lament, all that contagious hand-clapping”.
But not any more.
“Now only four or five remain, all packed with tourists and too expensive for the average Spaniard,” and, “At the city’s most hallowed flamenco school, half the students are from abroad.”
And, says AP, “Master guitar-maker Arcangel Fernandez has stopped taking orders. He’s been at it for 50 years, fashioning delicate wooden shells into lacquered beauties, and at age 75 he has enough work for the rest of his life.
However, the aficionados buying his coveted $13,000 instruments are not local musicians but Japanese collectors â an alarming sign that the art form considered so intrinsically Spanish is declining in its birthplace and is now more popular among foreigners.
Significantly, the index page to Flamenco-World.com opens in Spanish, English —- and Japanese.
‘Serious box-office problems ‘
Says the Wikipedia:
The roots of flamenco are not precisely known, but it is generally acknowledged that flamenco grew out of the unique interplay of native Andalusian, Islamic, Sephardic, and Gypsy cultures that existed in Andalusia prior to and after the Reconquest. Latin American and especially Cuban influences have also been important in shaping several flamenco musical forms.
Adds AP:
Amor de Dios School, teacher Inmaculada Ortega said flamenco has serious box-office problems and dance companies receive little support from a government more interested in promoting other Spanish art forms, such as painting or contemporary dance.
Ortega, 36, said she has to go as far as South Africa or the United States – some times for months – to make decent money, while in Spain she must give classes and sew flamenco costumes to make ends meet.
“Ortega said she believes many Spaniards cannot accept flamenco as a serious art form because of its gypsy roots,” the story says, adding:
“Foreigners like flamenco more because they don’t have any social prejudices. Spaniards have learned that flamenco is an art of a racial minority. For Spaniards, it’s a hobby but foreigners idolize it. They make flamenco their lives.”
If you’ve never heard flamenco, check out Ricardo Baliardo, better known as Manitas de Plata (Little Hands of Silver).
Or (and I know purists will slag me for this) or the Gypsy Kings.
Cheers!
Jon Newton – p2pnet
Also See:
Associated Press – Spain Frets Over Future of Flamenco, October 25, 2007
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