flamenco tree

A SHORT HISTORY AND THEORY OF FLAMENCO

Flamenco is a folk performance art indigenous to the province of Andalucía, Spain. Flamenco is often thought of as the musical outlet of the poor and oppressed, including the Gypsies, the Moors, and the Jews. The art, involving singing, dance and the guitar simultaneously, as well as rhythmic punctuation, was passed on by oral tradition.

While flamenco we know it today has only been in existence for two centuries, its roots extend back as far as the late 1400s and beyond. The Muslim occupation of Southern Spain lasted for seven centuries up to the late 1400s, until a backlash of intolerance and xenophobia characterized the beginning of the Spanish Inquisition. Thousands of Muslims, Jews, and Gypsies, as well as Christian dissidents fled the country, and those who remained and did not wish to convert fled to the mountain regions and caves, the sparsely inhabited areas of the Sierra Morena and the Sierra Nevada. These fugitive communities became known as "felag mengu,” an Arabic expression which means itinerant peasant, or peasant in flight. While these cultures had little in common with each other, they found themselves united against a common enemy. In this underground environment it is theorized that the first flamenco forms developed, the tragic lyrics and dance reflecting the sufferings of the persecuted people.

Over time, Flamenco was refined and modified to adapt the various formative influences, including Andalucian, Indian, Arabic, Jewish, Celtic, and more recently South American traditions and forms. Flamenco in its present form has only been in existence for two centuries.

Above all, flamenco embodies a visceral cry for attention that has a historical precedent in the persecution of people – be it Gypsies, Moors, or Jews – and stands as a monument to the human spirit’s ability to create beauty from terrible suffering. Today flamenco is still a storytelling art form, still handed down verbally, a testament to the strength and honesty of its message.

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