Andalucia: Birthplace of Flamenco

"Flamenco music is one of the most technically demanding, yet least understood music in the world today."

I won't pretend to have an extensive knowledge of Flamenco music, but I consider myself very lucky to have lived in the region of Spain where it originated. While living in Granada, I saw a few phenomenal performances in the Albyzin and Sacromonte, most likely never to matched outside of of Andalucia, that gave me a profound appreciation of the music and dance.

A friend of mine is a dancer who specializes in Flamenco and was performing with her dance company this weekend. She'd told me about the performance weeks ago but recommended that I wait to see a later show that would supposedly be more impressive. I'd decided to wait until I discovered a few days before the show that there would be live musicians (!!!) which was the ultimate selling point. By the time I was trying to get tickets the show was completely sold out, but fortunately, my friend was able to find an extra one for me amongst her fellow dance company members.

The theatre was really small so it was no wonder the show was sold out. I took advantage of being alone and slipped into a single "buffer" seat between two couples seated in the third row. (This is an American phenomena that will forever perplex me. From my experience, no one in any other country would be so obsessive of their personal space to leave open seats between themselves and others when sitting down in a theater. Why do we do this?)

It was an enjoyable show. Three different groups of dancers performed. Two were part of the dance school and one was the dance company, of which my friend was a part. She was definitely the dancer of the group that the drew the eye during the performance because she had the sharpest, most authentic performance. This can probably be attributed in part to the three months of training she had in Sevilla, Spain.

Flamenco is such a passionate song in itself that when the musicians performed a few songs without the dancers, my undivided attention on the music combined with my memories of Granada was enough for me to get a little emotional. I suppose that means it was good. :)