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[ Introduction | What is Flamenco? | History of Flamenco | Flamenco Boom in Japan | Conclusion | References ]

Flamenco

Image from Caravan World Rhythms. Used here with Permission	Image from =elemadrid=. Used here with Permission

Introduction

Molina (1967) as quated by Thiel-Cramer (1991) says in his book, Misterios del Arte Flamenco, "flamenco is the primal scream in its primitive form, from a people sunk in poverty and ignorance. Only their utter need and their instinctive emotions exist for the people." He adds that their songs "are desperation, dejection, lamentation, distrust, superstition, curses, magic, wounded spirit, a gloomy confession from a suffering and abandoned race."

Commonly, flamenco is thought as the mixture of Spanish original culture and Gypsies' culture. Because of the influence of gypsies, who have a history of persecution, the flamenco is known as the dance which includes the passionate, instinctive, and tragic element.

Historically, flamenco has the tragic background, but these days, flamenco is accepted by people as one of the most glorious arts. In Japan, flamenco is one of the most popular hobbies, and many people enjoy dancing, singing, and playing the guitar. I also enjoyed dancing flamenco three years ago. When I started flamenco, I was surprised at the number of flamenco dancers in Japan. According to the website Historia del Flamenco (1998-2000), shows that there are more than 300 flamenco schools in Japan, and there are more than 20,000 people who learn flamenco in Japan. I wondered why such many people have interests in flamenco.

The purpose of this paper is to define what flamenco is, explain the history of flamenco, and describe the flamenco boom in Japan.

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What is Flamenco?

Flamenco is a folk art from Spain. Furthermore, it is indigenous to the province of Andalusia, where place in the most southern part of Spain. Because of the geographical character, Andalusia was known as flourished international city. That is why Andalusian music was influenced by Indian, Arabian, Jewish, Greek, and Castilian music, and attracting people with such an exotic character.

Flamenco is involving singing, dance and the guitar simultaneously. According to Faucher (2001, ¶ 2) there are hundreds of different types of musics within flamenco, which have names such as seguriyas, soleares, alegrias, malaguenas, fandangos, zapateado, rondena, etc. They are defined by characteristic melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic structures, and their characteristic strongly depends on the regions. Click here to see the song regions.

History of Flamenco

Some writers (Faucher, 2001; Thiel-Cramer, 1991) point out about the following information about flamenco history. The flamenco art involves at least four cultures: the Gypsies, the Moors, or Arabs, the Jews, the indigenous Andalusians. The first three were thrown together by the persecution from 1492, and eventually, flamenco became the culture which has mainly the fusion of the gypsies' song and Andalusian folk music.

In Spain, people call gypsy gitano. They worked as a horse trade, a blacksmith, a fortuneteller, or a craftsman. And some people earned money by singing and dancing. They hated to settle and avoid joining with other people and kept their original tradition. Some lived with thieves, bandits, or beggars, so they were hated by the other people. Their history of persecution had continued since 1492 to the eighteenth century. During those days, they were denied their identity, and they forced to live in the concentration camp. They expressed their sorrow through singing.

Faucher (2001), in his article, "History of Flamenco," says that flamenco first became a public, performing art in the second half of the nineteenth century, with the emergence of cafe cantante, which is the cafe where people could enjoy flamenco. According to the website All About Spain(2000, ¶ 6), this era is called the golden age of flamenco. The first cafe cantante opened in Seville in 1842, and attracted very little attention, but by the 1860s, similar cafes were established all over the Andalusia. An enthusiastic audience from all classes and occupations watched the performances. The Gipsy singers and the Andalusian singers sang together in the cafe, and they created many different forms of flamenco. The cafe also expanded the role of the guitar. They employed guitarists who could accompany many different forms of songs and dance. While the singer remained the leading figure, the guitarist came to take an important part. Good guitarists were in great demand, so their competence was fierce. The players began to create their own style by using new techniques or adopting other music style.

Cafe cantantes' greatest days were over by the turn of the century, and by the 1910s they were in serious decline. The years up to 1936 were the years of the theatrical presentation of flamenco. George Bizet's famous opera Carmen was first performed in this ear. But war in Europe and the aftermath of civil war in Spain made the glorious days change to the hard days.

The website, All About Spain (2000, ¶ 10), says a sort of "Flamenco Renaissance" started in 1956. In Spain's larger cities, there are tablaos flamencos, which are nights clubs with a stage and with contracted flamenco artists. These tablaos, which began to appear in the 1950s are a direct continuation of cafe cantantes. Especially in the coast of the Iberian peninsula, there are many tablaos for tourists, and where tourists can watch the attractive high-class performance. Even if we do not go to Spain, we can see the flamenco in all over the world, sometimes on TV, and other times on stage, because of the infuluence of the mass media. Now, flamenco is accepted as one of the most attractive arts in the world.

Flamenco Boom in Japan

Otsuka (2001) points out the information below about the flamenco boom in Japan. The first flamenco boom in Japan was in 1960s. In those days, flamenco was enjoyed by a limited number people, and most of them were guitarists. In late 1970s, however, the movie, Carmen, stared by Antonio Gades, was great hit in Japan. And after that, number of dancers has increased. Especially in these couple of years, flamenco is popular among women as an attractive hobby.

Japan is far from Spain, but the website, Historia del Flamenco, (2001, ¶ 11) says "flamenco population in Japan is the largest in the world." And same website says "if you travel to Spain and go to tablaos, you will surprise more than thirty percent of audience are Japanese." Currently, we can see these phenomenon in Japan: many Spanish style restaurants where we can see the flamenco show, some companies which import the flamenco goods from Spain, some travel agencies which offer a flamenco dancing tour to Spain, some famous actresses who dance flamenco, many websites which connect many people who learn flamenco, and many flamenco schools where they teach dance, sing, and guitar. I also know one city where uses flamenco as a tool for activating the city. (Tateyama City)

I heard that flamenco is a hobby which people can start in any age, so I conducted a survey about this topic (Kobata, 2001). According to my survey, more than 70 percent people started flamenco after their twenties. Different from ballet or Japanese traditional dance, we can start flamenco in any age. This is a big reason why flamenco is popular. After they start flamenco, some of them enthusiastically continue flamenco and become professional flamenco artists.

The website, Histria del Flamenco (2001, ¶ 13) says "there are common points between Japanese and flamenco, and that is also an important reason why flamenco population is large in Japan." Gypsies' origin is said in India, so maybe there are some common cultural aspects between flamenco and Japanese culture.

Conclusion

As you can see from my paper, flamenco has a long history, but the style of flamenco is always changing. It depends on the era and the place. Japan is not a home country of flamenco, but flamenco is accepted as one of the most popular dances. I think the reason of the popularity of flamenco is the flexibility of this dance.

If you want to know more about the flamenco I recommend you to visit Sal's Flamenco Soapbox. On this website, you learn more information about flamenco.

References

Bonavita, S. (2001). Sal's Flamenco Soapbox. Retrieved November 20, 2001, from the World Wide Web: http://herso.hypermart.net/flamenco.html

INTERNET Red 2000. (2000). All About Spain. Retrieved Nobember 19, 2001, from the World Wide Web: http://www.red2000.com/spain/index.html

Faucher, F. (2001). History of Flamenco. Retrieved Nobember 5, 2001, from the World Wide Web: http://www.info-internet.net/~ffaucher/ffaucher2/flamenco.html

Koller, J. (2001). elemadrid. Retrieved Nobember 22, 2001, from the World Wide Web: http://www.elemadrid.com

Leblon, B. (1995). Gypsie and Flamenco, UK: University of Hertfordshire Press.

Molina, R. (1967). Misterious del arte flamenco, Barcelona: Sagitario S A de Editores

Otsuka, Y. (2001). Historia del Flamenco. Retrieved November 5, 2001, from the World Wide Web: http://www.eunavi.com/~flamen/REVISTA/historia.html

Thiel-Cramer, B. (1991). Flamenco, Sweden: REMARK AB

First created : October 15, 2001
Last updated : December 13, 2001
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