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The earth that covers me,
don't look at it or even
tread upon it.
Don't think of me,
for my name curses you.
In death, I disown you.
La tierra que a mi me cubra,
ni la mires ni la pises.
No te acuerdes mas de mi,
que mi nombre te maldice.
Muerto, reniego de ti.
Tarantos/Traditional
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Along the side of the road go two gyspy women:
one called Rosa, the other Juana,
on their waists, jugs of water... and I,
with my little burro, being an honorable
gypsy, accompany them home.
Vereas del camino van dos gitanas:
una se llama Rosa y la otra Juana,
en las cinturas, con sus cantaros de agua,
y yo con mi borriquito, como buen gitano,
las llevo a su casa.
Bulerias A Lebrija/Amparo Bermudez
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"You know what 'Los Castellanos' like to say, Little Burro announced to the group in her foghorn voice. 'Everyone knows how to dance. Only we 'gitanas' know how to walk."
Sarah Bird from the novel "The Flamenco Academy"
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You say you sleep alone;
I swear to God you lie,
because every night we
both sleep with just
that thought.
Dices que duermes sola;
mientes como ay, Dios,
porque de noche con el
pensamiento dormimos
los dos.
Siguiriyas/Traditional
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The people of Seville gathered on the banks of the Guadalquivir to view the sad spectacle of their beloved sovereign, the Poet-King Al Mu'tamid and his family being taken into exile...
"I shall forget everything before the morning by the Guadalquivir
when they were in the ships, like dead men in their graves;
The people crowded on both banks, watching how these pearls
floated on the froth of the river.
Veils fell, because maidens no longer cared to cover their faces,
and faces were torn, as mantles were in the old time..."
Ibn Labbana/Spanish-Arab Poet
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I would like to abjure everything,
renounce this whole world and
come back and live again,
mother of my heart, to see
if in a new world I could
find any more truth.
Quisiera yo renegar de
este mundo por entero
y volver de nuevo a habitar,
madre de mi corazon,
por ver si en un mundo nuevo
encontraba mas verdad.
Pet______/Traditional (Superstition prevents Gypsies from speaking or writing the name of the form. It is said that to do so brings death. This cante comes from the Sephardim/Spanish Jews and was sung as a means of expressing deep sorrow and anguish during the Inquisition.)
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"Dancing is much like abstract painting; two viewers will be moved differently by the same dance, and the same viewer will be moved differently by the same dance seen on separate occasions."
D. Pohren/Author
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All the evil-wishers in the
world criticize me because
of you, yet when the sun
shines on the window pane
it doesn't shatter the glass.
To' los mas malino del mundo
me lo criticaban a mi contigo,
sale el sol y da en el cristal
pero no quebranta el vidrio.
Solea/Traditional
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"Most gypsy men will cook, hold babies, take care of kids and make you feel housework is important. Everything to do with the house is an honor, and the woman is the center of that."
An American Flamenco Dancer Married to a Flamenco Singer
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"I concentrate and forget everything except the moment. When the audience gives me an 'ole' I give back everything I have inside. It doesn't happen when I practice. That's not enough. Knowing how to place your arm or leg has its beauty, but if flamenco doesn't have that bite or hurt from the inside, it remains cold."
Manuela Carrasco/Bailaora
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Este 'quere' de nosotros
Ha de 'mete' mas ruido
Que un dia 'e' terremoto
This love of ours
Will cause louder rumbling
Than a day of earthquakes
Solea/Traditional
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"When I am on stage, I see nothing. Now, for example, in the Teatro Monumental, which is huge, it is as if I were in a small box, isolated by the strange atmosphere that the lights produce...I am enclosed in my own little world. It is as if I were floating. Just imagine, here I have one bruise, and here another; my feet are so swollen that I can't even get my shoes on. But when I go out there, I forget everything. It is very beautiful to have that opportunity to live floating for several hours within this constant fighting and suffering that we call life."
Manuela Vargas/ Bailaora
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When the cantaor sings, he is celebrating a solemn rite. He rouses ancient essences from their sleep, wraps them in his voice, and flings them into the wind. He has a deeply religious sense of song. Through this song the race releases its pain and its true history. They are simple mediums, the lyrical crest feathers of our people. They are strange but simple folk who sing hallucinated by a brilliant point of light trembling on the horizon.
Federico Garcia Lorca/Flamenco Poet
Your mother tells everyone
she doesn't like me because I'm deaf,
and I don't like you, girl,
from all that I hear.
Anda diciendo tu madre
que no me quiere por sordo,
y yo no te quiero a ti,
chiquilla, por lo que oigo.
Solea/Traditional
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Those born into flamenco blame the disappearance of raw, gut-wrenching flamenco on agents and audiences who they see as invading their world. However, some outsiders also blame the commercialization in part on the gypsies' inability to organize and defend themselves. Many still cannot read contracts and few write well. Nearly all look down on self-promotion as a prostitution of their music.
Vicky Hayward/Journalist 1994
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Before, the relationships were not... you did not live like today, where everything lives off falsehood. Now, great amounts are spent on publicity for no use. There is a celebration of great shows which are not worth being celebrated. The worse the show is, the greater attention it gets. As usual, it is flamenco which ends up suffering the consequences. These shows are given much attention and support so that they produce economic benefits, and when someone with dignity comes trying to defend their art, they are left alone, completely alone to face the indifference of those who organize things, and who do not feel the things they organize.
Que la relación antes no era... que no se vivía como ahora, que se vive de falso todo. O sea que todo es una gran publicidad para nada. Que celebran un gran espectáculo para nada. Cuanto peor es el espectáculo, más que lo celebran. Porque como siempre sale perdiendo el flamenco. Se celebran mucho para que eso sea rentable, y cuando va una persona con toda dignidad a defender su arte, se ve totalmente solo, solo ante la indiferencia de los que organizan las cosas, que no las sienten.
Paco Lira/Owner of La Carboneria, Sevilla 1999
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By the light of the little cigar
I saw your face.
I have never seen
carnations glow so crimson.
A la luz del cigarro
te vi la cara,
no he visto clavellina
mas encarnada.
Siguiriyas/Traditional
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The eyes of my dark one
are like my troubles;
black as my pain,
large as my sorrows.
Los ojos de mi morena
se parecen a mis males;
negros como mis fatigas,
grandes como mis pesares.
Solea/Traditional
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Manolo Caracol?... An immense flamenco figure... Caracol is, all on his own, all flamenco singing. I knew him. It was at the Feria de Sevilla in April 1964. We were fortunate enough to spend these few days with Orson Welles. With him all doors were opened. One evening we were in the caseta of a marvelous man, the former matador, Gitanillo de Triana. Manolo was there, worn out by the abundance of life. Gitanillo played the guitar, the little gypsies danced, and then...crack...the worn-out voice went dead. He stopped, a little embarrassed. We talked about other things. A few years later, in one of life's nightmares, I learned on two separate occasions, that these two men, Gitanillo and Caracol were both killed in an automobile accident. Strange, the death of the great Caracol...a story worthy of Hitchcock. On 24 February, 1973, the car was found in a ravine. Manolo was dead, seated at the wheel, sitting a little too neatly...since then between Cadiz and Sevilla people speak...
Mario Bois/Writer & Cante Aficionado
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"Paco de Lucia is a lover of the 'toque corto'...and we shouldn't forget that, apart from his great speed y 'sus cosas', when Paco de Lucia slows down he is 'un bicho'! I have gotten drunk with him many times and, when he felt like it, he would say 'Now I'm going to play a little especially for your pleasure'...and he got to me, you know!
Paco del Gastor/Guitarrista
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The siguiriya is like a cautery that burns the heart, throat and lips of those who utter it. One must be careful of the fire and sing it at just the right moment.
Federico Garcia Lorca/Flamenco Poet
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Classical ballet is an introverted dance. Its choreography requires ample space, and even a solo dancer makes use of the entire stage. The introverted nature of flamenco dancing, on the other hand, is satisfied by an extremely limited space; an entire flamenco dance can be danced in a space no larger than a table top.
Claus Schreiner/Author
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It used to bring me
joy to see you,
now I don't care
one way or the other
if I see you or
don't see you.
Daba alegria verte,
ahora se me
da lo mismo,
verte como no verte.
Bulerias/Popular
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"La voz 'afilla'(raw, scratchy,genuine) is the sound a man makes when the world tries to choke him to death at birth and he sings anyway. That is the true Gypsy voice."
From the novel "The Flamenco Academy" by Sarah Bird
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"My personal opinion is that Antonio Mairena has left behind a school where aficionados can learn to sing. It is a school that is very easy to learn, with easy directions. Antonio Mairena, like it or not, was not a man of 'pellizco' (flavor, character in his singing style), not a cantaor with a 'voz calentita' (a voice that stirs the blood). He was a man that did everything perfectly. Truly perfect! When aficionados sing, they must have some of Mairena's sound. It is easy to have that kind of sound. Today there are very few cantaores who sing 'difficult'."
Juan Moreno Maya "El Pele"/Cantaor
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I hear people murmuring,
but they don't understand,
the love I feel for her is
driving me to madness.
So I would forget you,
you gave me a gold bracelet,
girl, and I threw it back in your face.
La gente me lo murmura,
pero no sabe la gente
lo que la camelo con
mis locuras.
Me dabas, pa' que
te olvidara, una pulsera
niña, de oro...yo te la tire a la cara.
Buleria/Miguel Flores "El Capullo"
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Pride and love
are fighting in my head.
In a war without mercy,
where death does not exist.
All that exists is one woman.
El orgullo y el querer,
se pelean en mi mente.
Una guerra sin cuartel...
donde no existe la muerte.
Ay, solo existe una mujer.
Taranto/Sung by Camaron de la Isla
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"Many American aficionados know how to mark compas por bulerias. Here, in Andalucia, 99% don't know how and will never learn."
Pedro Bacan/Guitarrista
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They say all the 'Juans'
look just like the devil,
but my little boy Juan
looks just like Saint Anthony.
Dicen que todos los Juanes,
se parecen al demonio,
pero yo tengo mi niño Juan
que parece un San Antonio.
Bulerias/Popular
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A deep-rootedness and sense of purpose is shared by both flamenco and blues. Like the black slaves in America, the Spanish gypsies sought a way to express their suffering, to make life bearable enough to survive. Both forms fit the definition used by R. Molina to describe early flamenco...
"In its primitive form it is the elemental cry of a people mired in poverty and ignorance, for whom instinctive feelings and the bare necessities of life are all that matter."
"Grito elemental--en sus formas primitivas--de un pueblo sumido en la pobreza y la ignorancia para quien solo existen las necesidades perentorias de la existencia primaria y los sentimientos instintivos."
Claus Schreiner/Author
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" No one told me 'this is how you dance a solea'...I just know (instinctively) how solea must be danced."
"A mi no me ha dicho nadie 'asi se baila por solea'...sino yo se como hay que bailar por solea."
El Farruco/Bailaor
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