FLAMENCO AND BARCELONA

FLAMENCO AND BARCELONA

Catalonia, especially Barcelona, counts with a great flamenco one hundred year’s old history being part of its culture, social and economic development of the city. If we look back to the Barcelona of the middle of the XIX century we find a Romantic city that the 4th April 1847 inaugurated the Grand Theatre of the Liceu, considered as one of the most important in the world.

It is placed in La Rambla of Barcelona, the most frequented social area, surrounded by bars and singing cafés it has been a symbol and a meeting point of power and Catalan bourgeoisie.

For the inauguration the Catalan dancers Juan Camprubí and Manuela García were hired and along with their company performed different varieties of flamenco.

There are a lot of famous flamenco artists from Barcelona, since the international Carmen Amaya, who made the flamenco and Barcelona known around the world, to contemporary artists such as Miguel Poveda, the maximum representing of singing worldwide.

A lot of important figures have been born in Catalonia, even more than in some Andalusian provinces. The number is only higher in Seville and Madrid.

The famous Chinese neighbourhood in the city, now known as Raval, took then all the flamenco activities in La puerta de la Paz, La Ramba Santa Mónica and Capuchinos, an area known as the Plain of the Theatre due to the large number of theatres, cafés and other social establishments.

In 1920 the flamenco was consolidated in Barcelona especially in theatres, cafés and others with the flamenco shows followed by the development of dance schools and the presence of important figures that little by little established in the Catalan capital. These years some important Catalan figures that will make history were born in Barcelona, as the dancer Carmen Amaya.