100 Places in Spain Every Woman Should Go by Patricia Harris

Author:Patricia Harris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travelling
Publisher: Travelers' Tales
Published: 2016-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

MUSEO DEL BAILE FLAMENCO, SEVILLA

The Museo del Baile Flamenco was made not for—but by—an artist, and that sensibility and devotion to craft make all the difference. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that the artist is Cristina Hoyos, one of the greatest and most expressive flamenco dancers of the twentieth century.

Hoyos was born in 1946 in Sevilla’s medieval barrio of Alfalfa and came full circle when she established her museum in the same neighborhood in an eighteenth-century building on the site of a Roman temple. She had danced in the narrow streets and in showy flamenco tablaos of the sort that purists often dismiss as too touristy. (In their defense, such spectaculars are often the first introduction to the art—certainly for me—and give performers work and the chance to perfect their skills.)

www.museoflamenco.com

Hoyos was not one to get lost in the supporting cast, and she was invited to join the company of acclaimed dancer and choreographer Antonio Gades. As the lead dancer from 1968 to 1988, she left an indelible mark on Gades’s work, including the film adaptations of Carmen, El Amor Brujo (Bewitched Love), and Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding), all directed by Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura. Watch a video of any one and you will quickly see why Hoyos’s seemingly effortless combination of muscular power and feminine grace earned her the title of “Andalucían High Priestess of Flamenco.”

After leaving Gades’s company, Hoyos founded Ballet Cristina Hoyos, toured extensively, beat breast cancer, and founded her museum in 2006. That same year, the government of Andalucía recognized flamenco as an essential part of Andalucían cultural identity.

Flamenco artists channel sorrow and joy into an art of rhythm and movement, and life experience only imbues them with greater authority and dignity. In his lecture on the “Theory and Play of the Duende,” poet and playwright Federico García Lorca (see Chapter 74) describes a flamenco dance contest where an octogenarian triumphs over younger women with “liquid waists.” She stood in place, lifted her arms, tossed her head back, and stamped her foot on the floor. Her economy of gesture encapsulated a lifetime of emotion.

Hoyos poured that duende into the creation of her museum. As the first—and only—museum of flamenco dance in the world, it traces the evolution of flamenco from its popular but disparaged roots to its acceptance as a uniquely expressive art form. But the museum is not a place to develop an intellectual knowledge of flamenco by reading wall texts and studying objects. It is a place to feel flamenco, to let the music and movement seep into your bones.

In one gallery, a video screen covers a long wall and plays a continuous loop of dancers performing seven major forms, or palos, of flamenco. Occasionally a word will flash on the screen—joy, longing, despair—but such clues are hardly necessary. Two palos associated most closely with female dancers represent the extremes of emotion: Alegrías, which progress from joy to abandon, and the Soleá, which begins in melancholy contemplation and resolves in quiet harmony.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.