Flamenco: mucho más que un baile

And flamenco is what comes out of that collision.

That's remarkable.

Bueno, sí, pero también hay que decir que los españoles no gitanos, los llamados payos, participaron también.

Well, yes, but you also have to say that non-Romani Spaniards, the ones called payos, also participated.

El flamenco fue una colaboración.

Flamenco was a collaboration.

No nació solo en una comunidad.

It wasn't born in just one community.

No, you're absolutely right about that.

I was overly tidy.

History rarely cooperates with clean narratives.

Mira, en el siglo diecinueve algo muy importante pasó.

Look, in the nineteenth century something very important happened.

Abrieron los cafés cantantes, que eran lugares donde la gente pagaba para escuchar flamenco.

They opened the cafes cantantes, which were places where people paid to listen to flamenco.

Antes, el flamenco era privado, era para la familia, para las fiestas íntimas.

Before that, flamenco was private, it was for the family, for intimate gatherings.

That's a huge shift.

Once you put something on a stage and sell tickets, the art form changes.

It has to.

You're now performing for strangers, not your own community.

I've seen that pattern everywhere, jazz in New Orleans, fado in Lisbon.

Exacto.

Exactly.

Y eso creó un debate que todavía existe hoy.

And that created a debate that still exists today.

Algunos decían que el flamenco profesional perdió su autenticidad.

Some people said that professional flamenco lost its authenticity.

Otros decían que la profesionalización ayudó al flamenco a sobrevivir y a crecer.

Others said that professionalization helped flamenco survive and grow.

The extraordinary thing is that debate is also exactly what happened with blues in America, or with tango in Argentina.

Every living art form from a marginalized community goes through this.

The moment the mainstream discovers it, the original community feels something is being taken.

Sí, y en el flamenco esto fue muy intenso.

Yes, and in flamenco this was very intense.

Las grandes familias gitanas de Jerez y Sevilla, como los Ortega o los Agujetas, guardaron sus tradiciones con mucho celo.

The great Romani families of Jerez and Seville, like the Ortegas or the Agujetas, guarded their traditions very jealously.

Para ellos, el flamenco era casi una lengua secreta.

For them, flamenco was almost a secret language.

I want to get into the different styles, because this is something most outsiders have no idea about.

Flamenco is not one thing.

Octavio, what's a palo?

Bueno, un palo es un estilo dentro del flamenco.

Well, a palo is a style within flamenco.

Hay más de cincuenta palos diferentes.

There are more than fifty different palos.

Cada uno tiene su propio ritmo, su propia estructura, su propia emoción.

Each one has its own rhythm, its own structure, its own emotion.

Fifty.

Most people think flamenco is one thing and there are fifty distinct forms.

Give me a few of the most important ones.

A ver, la soleá es muy seria, muy profunda, es el palo más respetado.

Well, the soleá is very serious, very deep, it is the most respected palo.

La bulería es rápida, alegre, con mucho humor.

The bulería is fast, joyful, with a lot of humor.

El fandango viene más del mundo rural.

The fandango comes more from the rural world.

Cada palo tiene una personalidad completamente diferente.

Each palo has a completely different personality.

Right, and this connects to something I've heard called cante jondo, deep song.

Which is different from the lighter forms.

Is that a real distinction or is it just something critics invented to sort the serious stuff from the popular stuff?

Es una distinción real.

It is a real distinction.

El cante jondo es el flamenco más puro y más antiguo.

The cante jondo is the purest and oldest flamenco.

Federico García Lorca y Manuel de Falla organizaron un festival en 1922 en Granada para proteger el cante jondo porque pensaban que estaba desapareciendo.

Federico García Lorca and Manuel de Falla organized a festival in 1922 in Granada to protect the cante jondo because they thought it was disappearing.

García Lorca.

Who is also the person who gave us the concept of duende, which is maybe the most untranslatable idea in this whole conversation.

I want you to try and explain it because I've read his lecture on it twice and I'm still not sure I fully have it.

Mira, el duende es difícil de explicar, tienes razón.

Look, duende is difficult to explain, you're right.

Es algo que pasa en el flamenco cuando la música llega a un nivel muy alto, muy intenso.

It is something that happens in flamenco when the music reaches a very high, very intense level.

No es técnica.

It is not technique.

Es una energía oscura, algo que viene de dentro.

It is a dark energy, something that comes from within.

And Lorca connects it to death, doesn't he.

He wrote that the duende only appears in the presence of death, that it's the knowledge of mortality that gives the music its power.

Which is either profound or pretentious depending on your mood.

Para mí es profundo.

For me it is profound.

Cuando escuchas a un gran cantaor, un gran cantante de flamenco, sientes algo que no puedes explicar con palabras.

When you listen to a great cantaor, a great flamenco singer, you feel something you cannot explain with words.

Sientes que esa persona vivió cosas muy duras.

You feel that this person lived through very hard things.

Eso es el duende.

That is the duende.

Look, now I want to talk about the tourist question, because it's real and it's complicated.

I've been to tablaos, those flamenco shows in restaurants and venues aimed at visitors.

Some were extraordinary.

Some felt like watching a screensaver.

How do you tell the difference?

Bueno, hay tablaos buenos y tablaos malos.

Well, there are good tablaos and bad tablaos.

Los mejores tablaos de Madrid y Sevilla tienen artistas profesionales de verdad.

The best tablaos in Madrid and Seville have truly professional artists.

El problema es que muchos turistas no pueden distinguir la diferencia y entonces los malos tablaos también sobreviven.

The problem is that many tourists cannot tell the difference, and so the bad tablaos survive too.

The market rewards spectacle over substance.

I've seen that in journalism too, it's not a flamenco problem specifically.

But here's what interests me more, what does real flamenco look like when it's not for an audience at all?

La juerga flamenca.

The juerga flamenca.

Es una reunión privada, en una casa o en un bar pequeño, donde los artistas tocan y cantan para ellos mismos y para sus amigos.

It is a private gathering, in a house or a small bar, where the artists play and sing for themselves and their friends.

No hay escenario, no hay luces.

There is no stage, no lights.

Solo el flamenco.

Just the flamenco.

I've been lucky enough to be at one of those, years ago in Triana, the old Romani neighborhood in Seville.

And it was three in the morning and it went on until sunrise and I understood almost nothing linguistically but I didn't need to.

Es que el flamenco no necesita traducción.

The thing is, flamenco does not need translation.

Eso es uno de sus poderes.

That is one of its powers.

La emoción es universal.

The emotion is universal.

Puedes no entender las palabras del cante y todavía sentir todo.

You can not understand the words of the singing and still feel everything.

In 2010, UNESCO declared flamenco an intangible cultural heritage of humanity.

Which is a significant formal recognition.

But I remember reading some Spanish critics at the time who were not entirely thrilled about it.

What was that about?

La verdad es que la reacción fue complicada.

The truth is that the reaction was complicated.

Por un lado, fue un reconocimiento muy importante.

On one hand, it was a very important recognition.

Por otro lado, algunos artistas pensaban que el flamenco no necesitaba la aprobación de una institución internacional para ser grande.

On the other hand, some artists thought that flamenco did not need the approval of an international institution to be great.

There's a certain pride in that, isn't there.

We've survived persecution, poverty, centuries of being pushed to the margins, we don't need a certificate from Geneva to tell us we matter.

Exacto.

Exactly.

Pero también hay un debate más profundo sobre si el flamenco cambia demasiado, si pierde su esencia.

But there is also a deeper debate about whether flamenco changes too much, whether it loses its essence.

Y aquí tienes que hablar de Paco de Lucía.

And here you have to talk about Paco de Lucía.

Paco de Lucía.

The guitarist.

I mean, by any measure, one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century, full stop, not just in flamenco.

But he was controversial?

Mucho.

Very much so.

Paco de Lucía empezó a mezclar el flamenco con el jazz y con la música latina en los años setenta.

Paco de Lucía started mixing flamenco with jazz and Latin music in the seventies.

Trabajó con John McLaughlin y con Chick Corea.

He worked with John McLaughlin and Chick Corea.

Para algunos puristas, eso fue casi una traición.

For some purists, that was almost a betrayal.

And yet, from the outside, what Paco de Lucía did looks like exactly what flamenco has always done.

Take influences from other cultures, absorb them, transform them into something new.

He was being faithful to the spirit of flamenco even while breaking its rules.

Sí, y con el tiempo casi todos reconocieron que Paco de Lucía hizo algo extraordinario.

Yes, and with time almost everyone recognized that Paco de Lucía did something extraordinary.

Llevó la guitarra flamenca a un nivel técnico que nadie pensaba que era posible.

He took the flamenco guitar to a technical level that no one thought was possible.

Hoy es un héroe para todos.

Today he is a hero for everyone.

So that debate got resolved in his favor.

But there's a more current version of the same argument and her name is Rosalía.

I know you have opinions here, Octavio.

Bueno, Rosalía es un caso muy interesante y también muy polémico.

Well, Rosalía is a very interesting and also very controversial case.

Ella estudió flamenco de manera muy seria, durante muchos años.

She studied flamenco very seriously, for many years.

Pero su música mezcla el flamenco con el pop, con el reggaeton, con elementos electrónicos.

But her music mixes flamenco with pop, with reggaeton, with electronic elements.

And the criticism she gets, from what I've read, is that she's using flamenco as an aesthetic, as a costume almost, rather than as a living tradition she belongs to.

Which is a genuinely difficult charge to answer.

Es que para mí el debate sobre Rosalía es el mismo debate de siempre.

The thing is, for me the debate about Rosalía is the same old debate.

Cuando algo cambia, la gente tiene miedo.

When something changes, people are afraid.

Pero el flamenco siempre cambió.

But flamenco always changed.

Siempre tomó cosas nuevas y las hizo suyas.

It always took new things and made them its own.

There's something here about what makes a tradition alive versus what makes it a museum piece.

A tradition that can't absorb anything new isn't really alive, it's preserved.

And preservation is not the same as vitality.

La verdad es que estoy de acuerdo contigo, aunque no me gusta admitirlo.

The truth is I agree with you, even though I don't like to admit it.

El flamenco sobrevivió la persecución, la pobreza, la dictadura de Franco, que no entendía bien su valor.

Flamenco survived persecution, poverty, the Franco dictatorship, which did not truly understand its value.

Sobrevivió todo eso porque siempre fue capaz de adaptarse.

It survived all of that because it was always able to adapt.

Hold on, Franco and flamenco.

Because there's a dark irony there.

Franco used flamenco as a symbol of Spanish national identity, essentially appropriated it for propaganda, while simultaneously the communities that created it were marginalized.

That's a deeply uncomfortable chapter.

Sí, es una ironía muy amarga.

Yes, it is a very bitter irony.

Franco promovió el flamenco turístico, el flamenco superficial, como símbolo de España.

Franco promoted tourist flamenco, superficial flamenco, as a symbol of Spain.

Pero los gitanos, que crearon el flamenco, vivieron en condiciones muy difíciles durante su dictadura.

But the Romani people, who created flamenco, lived in very difficult conditions during his dictatorship.

So the regime stole the art and ignored the artists.

Or worse.

That pattern is depressingly familiar across cultures and across history.

The music gets celebrated while the people who made it are pushed out the back door.

Mira, pero hoy la situación es diferente.

Look, but today the situation is different.

Hay instituciones en España, como la Bienal de Flamenco de Sevilla, que trabajan para dar visibilidad a los artistas gitanos y para preservar los estilos más puros.

There are institutions in Spain, like the Flamenco Biennial of Seville, that work to give visibility to Romani artists and to preserve the purest styles.

Es un trabajo importante.

It is important work.

So where does that leave us?

Here's my attempt at a summary, and correct me where I'm wrong.

Flamenco is a five-hundred-year synthesis of the music of persecuted communities.

Its power comes directly from that pain.

And it's still alive precisely because it never stopped evolving.

Bueno, no voy a corregirte esta vez, Fletcher.

Well, I'm not going to correct you this time, Fletcher.

Creo que entendiste.

I think you understood.

El flamenco es historia, es dolor, es alegría, es vida.

Flamenco is history, it is pain, it is joy, it is life.

Y si algún día vas a un tablao y sientes algo extraño en el pecho, algo que no puedes explicar, eso es el duende.

And if one day you go to a tablao and you feel something strange in your chest, something you cannot explain, that is the duende.

Y bienvenido.

And welcome.