Flamenco Show

Flamenco Show

You’re sitting in a hazy smoke filled café, hands begin to clap rhythmically, feet begin to stamp. From the corner of the room a short stocky man saunters onto the stage, black hat obscuring most of the well-worn face. A cigarette dangles from his mouth, he crushes it underfoot, perches on a stool and with head hung low his fingers begin to caress the guitar. Slowly and hypnotically, clapping rises and stills, only his fingers sing out the mournful tune, slow and sad, rising and falling like a wild moaning wind.

The clapping begins again slow, sure, steady. Without a break in his playing the guitarists shuffles his stool to the side, the tempo bursts as a woman twirls in, head high, long neck and longer fingers pointing to the sky, heels click and stop.

She’s frozen, waiting in silence. Then the fingers stroke the strings, plucking out feelings. The dancer twirls, slowly, every fold in the scarlet skirt unfolds and flies, her form so graceful, her feet so light.

The dancer is lost in time, dancing for her past, the past of generations of persecution fighting to be heard. Dancing for the moment, immersed in the now, captivating her audience, telling the tale of her people.

Travellers without a country dispersed through lands not their own, rejected outcasts, struggling to survive. Their cante hondo (deep song) was their recreation, their outlet and their protest at the unfairness of life.

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