Flamenco Quote of the Day

Spain is moved by the duende, for it is a country of ancient music and dance where the duende squeezes the lemons of death...a country of death, open to death. Everywhere else, death is an end. Death comes, and they draw the curtains. Not in Spain. In Spain they open them. Many Spaniards live indoors until the day they die and are taken out into the sunlight. A dead man in Spain is more alive as a dead man than any place in the world. His profile wounds, like a barber's razor.

Federico Garcia Lorca/Poet

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

"Technique is merely a means and not an end in itself. It shouldn't become an obstacle that gets in the way of the eruption of passion".

"La técnica es un medio, no un fin. No debe convertirse en un obstáculo que impida la erupción pasional."

Mario Maya/Bailaor

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

With carnations and roses
I will crown you,
for a more beautiful and honorable
gypsy woman is never
to be born again.
I will buy you a little
comb, the color of
caramel, to put in
your hair.

Entre claveles y rosas
que te voy a coronar,
porque gitana no nace
ni mas bonita, y 'honra.'
Del color de caramelo
peinecillo te compraba
para ponertelo en el pelo.

Tangos a la Niña de los Peines

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

I am the wind,
you a bonfire,
and I long to burn
in your arms.
Even fresh water
won't put out the flames.

Yo soy el viento
tu eres la hoguera,
y yo en tus brazos
quemarme quisiera.
Ni el aguita clara
la podra apagar.

Bulerias/Jose Monge Camaron

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

"There are a lot of good professionals and very few artists."

Manuel Morao/Guitarrista

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

If Flamenco was American, it would be the biggest thing in the universe.

Si el Flamenco fuera Americano, seria lo mas grande del universo.

Rafael Maya El Cable/Flamenco Artist


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Flamenco Quote of the Day

People dance for many reasons. We dance our joy, our freedom, our worship, our deepest loss. I suspect we even dance our death. Ben Okri tells a story about the flamenco dancer preparing for the terror of the dance which may destroy her forever. “When the music starts she begins her dance with ritual slowness. Then she stamps out the dampness from her soul. With a dark, tragic rage, shouting, she hurls her hungers, her doubts, her terrors and her secular prayer for more light into the spaces around her. Soon she becomes a wild, unknown force, glowing in her death, dancing from her wound, dying in her dance ... In the silence that follows no one moves.”

An excerpt taken from an article in The Tablet by Daniel O'Leary, August 2012

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

While Gypsy melody, like primitive Oriental song styles, is rich in ornamentation, this is employed only at points where the emotive force of the lyric provides expansion or exaltation. The shouts used by our people to encourage or excite the dancers and guitarists have their origin in the custom still to be seen in similar circumstances among races of Oriental origin.

Manuel de Falla/Composer


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Flamenco Quote of the Day

If you asked me for the moon,
I could not give it to you,
for the moon is being held
captive by the kisses of the sultan.
For the moon is being held captive
in the Alhambra of Granada.

Si me pidieras la luna
no te la pudiera dar,
porque la luna esta presa
de los besos del sultan,
porque la luna esta presa
en La Alhambra de 'Grana'.

Tientos/Popular

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

Let's get out of this garden,
so I can tell you of my sorrows.
If I tell them to you here,
all the flowers will wither.

Vamonos de este jardín
pa' contarte mis dolores,
que si te los cuento aquí
se marchitarán las flores.

Tientos/Popular

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

The Gypsy epitomizes the loftiest, the most profound, the most aristocratic characteristics of my country; he is the most representative of its way of living, the keeper of the flame, the blood, and the alphabet of a truth both Andalusian and universal.

Federico Garcia Lorca/Poet

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

I'm going to have some shoes made
from the brim of my hat,
very fine and very flamenquitos...
'cause my shoemaker is very flamenco.

My steps will resound,
'cause my shoemaker is very flamenco...
I'm going to have some shoes made
from the brim of my hat.

I've never seen more beautiful shoes
than my new ones...
'cause my shoemaker is very flamenco.

Me voy a hacer unos zapatitos
del ala de mi sombrero,
muy finos y muy flamenquitos
que es muy flamenco mi zapatero.

Que resuenen mis pasitos,
que es muy flamenco mi zapatero.
Me voy a hacer unos zapatitos
del ala de mi sombrero.

No los he visto más bonitos
que mis zapatitos nuevos
que es muy flamenco mi zapatero.

Sevillanas/Camaron de la Isla

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

The time had arrived when moods were mellow, and bodies and throats wine-warmed and flexible. Diego began strumming a slow, melancholy seguiriyas. Mairena, infected with the duende of Diego's playing, started singing this despairing rhythm amid absolute stillness. He sang beautifully and with great emotion, finishing on a note of tragedy pervading the room with a quieting depression. La Fernanda was shamelessly weeping. The guitar sounded again, this time the sluggish, persistent call of the soleares. Juan Talega began singing and despondency deepened. He sang interminably, in ancient ways that are nearly forgotten, slowly, methodically...

D.E. Pohren/Author

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

"When I was young, I simply had no choice but to learn by ear. Some people say that this might be a reason why my music comes more from inspiration than from intellect."
Paco de Lucia, Flamenco Guitarist



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Flamenco Quote of the Day

The Seville style of dance is instantly recognizable by the positioning of the dancer's head, the movement of the hips and the arching of the shoulders. Matilda Coral is a shining example of this classic dance style, which concentrates on the upper torso. Her hand and arm movements are fluid and the arching of the shoulders and back done so majestically, such a contrast to the swirling hysteria performed by many of today’s female flamenco dancers.

Tony Bryant/Author

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

Each time I see your hair,
I feel the rhythm of tiny
bells in my blood,
and butterflies are born to me
in my hands.
Your hair merits
a velvet rose.

Cada vez que miro tu pelo,
me siento en la sangre
un compas de campanillas,
y en mis manos me nacen mariposas.
Por que tu pelo merece una rosa
de terciopelo!

Bulerias/Manuel & Alba Molina

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

This girl, sleep little bright star, 

sun of all the suns,
in a cradle of snails.
This little boy
has no cradle,
his father is a carpenter,
he is going to make him one

Esta niña, duérmete lucerito,
sol de los soles,
en una cunita de caracoles.
Este niño chiquito
no tiene cuna,
su padre es carpintero, 

le va a hacer una

Traditional Nana or Flamenco Lullaby

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

Do these commercially orientated dancers let their hair down at juergas and dance in an authentic manner? Rarely. The crowds, the applause, the stage, the money, the fame quickly drive all desire for authenticity from them. They actually come to belittle good natural dancing as oversimplified and primitive, forgetting (if they ever knew) that such dancing, in flamenco at least, is the only form that arrives to the heart, that a fluid, non-theatrical play of arms and upper torso and a release of duende slowly and at close quarters, are the only factors that matter. Factors that are almost never created in a commercial atmosphere. Thus from a purely flamenco point of view (not theatrical), a list of good dancers is not relevant. It would be pitifully small.

Don Pohren/Author

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

Clergymen and confessors,
bishops and cardinals,
at the hour of death
we will all be equals.

Clerigos y confesores,
obispos y cardenales,
en la hora de morir,
todos seremos iguales.

Caña/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

The persecutions. These incessant persecutions; three hundred years of continual persecution and harassment. This ought to be enough to break the strongest spirit. But as long as he has his family around him, the gypsy seems to be a pillar of steel. Or perhaps he is as tough as an osier, which bends but never breaks.

Barbara Thiel-Cramer/Author

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

I'm never going back to your house,
so that later you can't throw
back in my face the very
little that you give me.

A tu casa no voy mas,
para que luego no me
eches en cara lo
poquito que tu me das.

Solea por Bulerias/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

One New Year's Eve I finished with the guitar covered in blood, and Gitanillo de Triana told me that I couldn't carry on playing like that. "We are going to find a way that you can keep on working without having to play the guitar, because you must know how to do something else," he said. So I told him that I knew how to dance a bit to bulerías. I was about 19 years old and I remember that Sernita de Jerez did the singing. When I had finished the performance Gitanillo was waiting for me. "What's this about knowing how to dance a bit to bulerías? You know how to dance better than all the dancers in Madrid," he said as he gave me a push. "Dance again because I want to see you myself". And he became so drunk that he ended up on a plane to Caracas, where he met up with Angelita Gómez - a teacher from Jerez - and said to her: "Do you know who is to blame for me coming here? Your friend from Jerez, Parrillita, who says he knows how to dance a bit to bulerías. Look how drunk I got because of that boy."

Parrilla de Jerez/Guitarrista/b. Jerez 1945 d. June 6, 2009

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

I never sang at a party until I was seventeen. Before that I'd never open my mouth to sing, not even in the shower. It happened at a very intimate family gathering at my Uncle Eduardo's home. He started singing, I was listening to him, but there came a point when I couldn't stand it any more and I had to stand up and sing for him. To me, my Uncle Eduardo was one of the best cantaores I've heard. My feelings just overcame me then and I started singing. When my family heard me sing, the birthday cake hit the roof, the TV set fell off the shelf and my father tore his shirt open. When I finished singing I took my motorbike and I went home. I felt really calm and relaxed. Shortly afterwards my Uncle Eduardo died - he was the one who made me start singing.

Jesus Mendez/Cantaor

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

Oh, little Virgin Mother of Carmen,
what great suffering it is,
to be so near water
and not be able to drink...

Ay, 'Maresita' del Carmen,
que pena tan grande es
estar juntito del agua
y no poderla beber...

Malagueñas/Juan Breva

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

It is better to die with the blood gushing from you, than to live with it dead in your veins.

Vale mas ser muerto desangrado que vivo con ella podrida.

Federico Garcia Lorca/Poet


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Flamenco Quote of the Day

I don't want you to talk to anyone.
Only to your confessor,
your father,
your mother,
your sister,
and me.

No quiero que hables con nadie.
Solo con tu confesor,
con tu padre,
con tu madre,
con tu hermanita,
y yo.

Fandanguillos/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

'Ay! And I felt a chill when you put your flamenco lips on mine.' I am doing more singing and palmas than dancing these days, and I gathered my long skirt around me, revealing tennis socks, my scruffy cross-trainers. Most definitely the wrong shoes for flamenco. All you can hear on the linoleum is a muffled sound and little squeak of rubber. I am suddenly aware of being once again on the very fine line I have always walked--something between very pathetic and excruciatingly sublime. 'And I don't complain to my star'...I sing...'So lucky I am...I do not complain'...

Ana Castillo from "Peel My Love Like an Onion"


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Flamenco Quote of the Day

Between the sacred bread and wine,
I prayed to God that you would
choke on grief,
just as grief is choking me.

Entre la hostia y el caliz
a mi Dios se lo pedi
que t'ahoguen las duquelas
como m'ahoguen a mi.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

Corazon Flamenco, who came to London in 1995-6, brought the great artist Manuela Carrasco, but the first hour of the show was made tedious with kitsch--and what is worse, kitsch performed by good artists. They must have decided that unless they softened us up with touristy stuff, we wouldn't accept Manuela Carrasco...By trying to make it "accessible" to us, they had debased their art and reinforced the impression, already widespread in Britain, that Flamenco is tinsel.

Robin Totton/Author

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

That which is Gypsy
is found in the surge of the blood
and in the grooves of the hands.

Lo gitano
va en la masa de la sangre
y en las rayas de las manos.

Solea/Traditional

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