Experience Flamenco during your villa holiday. - Tue 14th April 2009
Flamenco is a traditional Spanish musical genre combining Cante (song), Baile (dance) and Guitarra (the guitar). Originating from the province of Andalusia the flamenco can tell all imaginable stories from tragedy to comedy, and love to politics using song, dance and music to bring the story alive. Stories abound of the hazardous mountain landscape, where murderous highwaymen and bandits would kill their victims for the smallest sums of money, some of whom would become the stuff of legends, glorified by the romantic writers of the time. Flamenco is a passionate and seductive art form, a mysterious and misunderstood culture that has been burning in Andalucía for nearly five hundred years, and today flamenco has thousands of aficionado’s worldwide. Originally many of the classes were illiterate, so the music and songs were passed on orally, eliminating any written history from being recorded. Many of the groups involved in the beginning of the flamenco culture were later persecuted, including the gypsies, the Jews and the Moors, taking any existing evidence with them at the time. Flamenco has been shrouded in mystery for many years, and it has only in recent years become known to, but not fully understood by, the rest of the world. Flamenco music made a comeback in the late eighteenth century in a time often referred to as the Golden Age of Flamenco. Singing and dancing performances started growing in popularity in the cities of Seville and Malaga and quickly spread throughout the province of Andalusia. As the movement grew, so did the different styles of flamenco; as local dance movements and traditions influenced the original art form. Many people mistakenly think of flamenco as being a form of dance, although it originally started as a form of singing to tell a story. Dance was later added to express the songs with movement to the music. The entire art form is a complex blend of music, dance and song and to the untrained eye may look wild and ardent. The sophisticated footwork and complex rhythms of music combine together to make flamenco the passionate art form that it is today. Flamenco is presented in many different varieties, and the colourful polka-dot dresses, castanets, and mellow tones of the acoustic guitar have become emblematic of Andalucía, but these do not represent the authentic side of flamenco. Castanets are not part of true flamenco, they are an element that has been added to enhance the finger snapping. Keep an eye out for the posters telling you were and when you might catch a show. If it’s authentic then you will never forget it.