Put your hands together
Flamenco. It either gets under your skin and you’re an aficionado from the moment you first experience it, or you wish they’d stomp off and have their wailing temper tantrums elsewhere. If you’re not sure which camp you belong to, this month’s flamenco festival, De Cajón!, could help you decide.
Hailing from Andalucía but with Indian roots, flamenco in its original form was the simple sound of a plaintive voice accompanied by the rhythm beaten out with a stick. Centuries on (and as this festival shows), modern flamenco covers a vast range of styles but most feature a combination of voice (cante), dance (baile), guitar (toque) and generally having a right old knees-up (jaleo).
Now in its fifth year and with many a loyal fan in the Catalan capital, De Cajón! proves that you don’t have to be Andalucian to have gypsy magic in your feet, voice or fingers. This year’s festival is its most eclectic yet, running the whole gamut of styles from gravelly-voiced ‘cante jondo’ (a vocal style whose name means ‘deep song’) to flamenco hip-hop fusion. There’s even a cycle of flamenco in Catalan at Apolo 2.
Festival highlights include flamenco pop sensation and actress, Rosario (the bullfighter from Almodovar’s Talk to Her), who takes to the stage at the Palau de la Música (Feb 25th), the rap/flamenco stylings of La Shica at Luz de Gas (March 19th) and a tribute to Camarón—the late-but-great godfather of new flamenco—in Hospitalet (March 12th).
Our picks are legendary crooner José Mercé, whose gritty ‘50 a day’-style voice and catchy choruses come to the Liceu on March 8th, and Tomasito, a man famous for throwing a moonwalk or bizarre breakdance move into his flamenco shufflings (March 26th, Apolo).
There’s also an extraordinary opportunity to see Spain’s gloomiest indie rockers, Los Planetas, pay homage to flamenco daddy Manolo Caracol at the Palau de la Música on March 11th. Quite how that will sound is anyone’s guess.
De Cajón! Festival Flamenco de Barcelona; Various venues; February 11th, 2010 to April 15th, 2010; www.theproject.es
HOW TO JALEO
There’s no room for wallflowers in a flamenco club. To fit in, all you need to do is stamp your feet and shout out encouragement. It goes something like this:
At the opening few bars, or at the first sign of faffing, pipe up with a ‘Vamo’ ya!’ (‘Let’s go/Get on with it!’), followed with an ‘Eso es!’ (‘That’s it!’) when they do. When the dancers impress with their nifty footwork, try out an ‘ASÍ se baila!!!’ (‘THAT’S how to dance!!!’) or a ‘Toma que toma!’. Once you’ve got the hang of it, it’s time for an ‘Olé!’. For the flamenco equivalent of an ‘I need to be hosed down that was so good’, a simple ‘AGUA!’ does the trick. Be warned though, those hand claps are more complicated than they look.