The interesting stuff

I saw Mara two nights ago. We hung out at her place and traded stories of what had happened since December 5th. She had some interesting ones about travels in Vietnam. She shared midnight dinner with me, and then walked Faro out to see me off.

I met Salome (fellow Vancouver flamenco dancer) and her brother Milton (from Costa Rica, as is she originally) by the cathedral earlier that day and we decided on stuff to go see.

Last night I met them again and we went to Torres Macarena. We squeezed in beside the lady who always dances at casual singing nights, and Carmen Ledesma (a dancer with solera) and some gentlemen at another table, around a real fire. An hour late, the show finally started.

So I guess this is why I'm here. I need to follow what keeps my soul and heart alive, and this is it. Again, I sit with an overjoyed friend, both of us shaking our heads and trying to fight back tears. Riveted is the word that always comes to me, about shows there. I think I am in an altered state of consciousness while watching. What I most want in the whole world, and the core thing inside me is being engaged by what I'm seeing and hearing.

I wish I could share the real flamenco with you all. I am sure there is not anyone alive who would not love bulerias, if they could hear them done here in Andalucia, by a group who knows what they're doing and isn't playing just for tourists.

I have never noticed palmeros so much (the guys who stand behind the singer and guitarist and clap). Their art can be quite subtle - the rhythm so complex, but changing constantly in exactly how they mark it, and in volume, and stopping exactly with the end of the phrase the guitar makes. It is totally enthralling, compelling, the steadiness and strength of their rhythm, and "catchier" than any pop music melody.

There are no rules but the rhythm, and the tone and overall structre of the particular type of song, along with some typical ways of strumming and melodic elements that the guitar and singer need to incorporate. Inside that it is all what moves the singer, with phrase endings being emphasised by a sudden shrug of the shoulders, a stamp of her foot or some feisty piece of dance move that just surges up from her gut.
It would not be possible not to be moved by this art form that breaks the rules of my culture and upbringing. The singer wears a huge, hot pink cloth flower smack in top center of her head. Sometimes she struts, other times collects her arms and shoulders and energy inwards if she sings about "luto que llevo en mi corazon" (mourning that I carry in my heart), with her voice breaking and her face contorted. But it is not fake, and that is why you are riveted. My Canadian peers have come to distain any art or music that is so obvious; so "dramatic". Pop singers that have done that kind of stuff over the ages are a dime a dozen, but you don't feel anything because it is trite and all bad acting and fails to touch you anywhere close to the core; it is merely sentimental and comfortable. But here they have not lost the ability to express it sincerely (well, if you see a good singer); or perhaps they have not let the triteness of what many people do badly, cause them to become cynical and disdain intense expression of any kind, or quit trying.

The guitar is equally as blatantly dramatic, with lightening quick, rhythmic pulses that speed up and then stop suddenly. The palmeros stamp their feet making the whole stage shake, and accent the guitar with erupting shouts.

Laura danced, as do many female flamenco singers, between her letras or slowly during the end of phrases, in a manner sometimes completely controlled, other times utterly unhinged; on the edge of appropriateness. Both palmeros did a tiny bit of dancing at the very end. Male dancers are so uncommon at home, I still have not seen very many of them live. The small, younger guy was all unbelievably controlled, quick movements that are like a moving piece of art.