Dance, sing, accompaniment and charm “Duende” The Flamenco is a musical and dancing art which came up in Andalusia and it is based in three concepts: dance, sing and guitar. According to the Spanish Dictionary of the Royal Academy the sing is the action and effect of singing any popular Andalusian sing. The flamenco singing is based in a gypsy and deep way of feeling. In Spanish the male singers are known by “cantaores” and the female ones “cantaoras”. The flamenco dance is also a way of showing the passion, the emotion and the human sensibility. Those who dance flamenco…
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…
MONTSE CORTÉS
Montse Cortés Montse Cortés Fernández was born in 1972. Among the privileged Catalan voices stands out Montse Cortés, a pure gypsy descendant of a family from Granada. She knows all the flamenco sing varieties, the best choice for a flamenco dancer who wants to be accompanied by a luxury singer. Let’s remember her in the performances with Antonio Canales and Mónica Fernández. She sings a lot of different registers, when she performs accompanied at the guitar by her nephew Eduardo Cortés Santiago (Barcelona, 1980), she dazzles with her voice similar to Camarón.
AURORA PONS
Aurora Pons Aurora Pons taught lessons in the dance school that Juan Magriñá had in the Petrixol Street. This young teacher released the title of Dance by the Theatre Institute of Barcelona. As a teenager she already was main dancer in the Grand Theatre of Liceu. Aurora Pons brought a teaching system from Seville, completely different from the one used in Barcelona. In Seville the lessons took half an hour and there were particular lessons. The teacher was in front of you and you had to follow his movements, while deducing or guessing that the piano played the pasodoble El…
LA CHANA
La Chana Antonia Santiago Amador’s father was from Almeria and her mother was from Cartagena, her surnames came from flamenco families. She was born in Barcelona in 1946 and was raised in Hospitalet de Llobregat. The dancer, as all the gipsies, learnt from her elders and began his artistic career when she was a teenager along with her uncle, the guitarist and singer El Chano, in an establishment called La Bota placed in Tossa de Mar, managed by some cousins of her ethnic group. In 1965, the dancer El Sali, hired him for his group for six months in…
MIGUEL POVEDA
Miguel Poveda Badalona, 1973, his father was from Murcia and his mother from Castellón, stands out his innovating way of singing from his starts in the flamenco groups of the Barcelona suburbs to the flamenco tablaos of the city centre. He became famous when he was awarded with four prizes in the XXXIII Flamenco Sing Festival Las Minas, in La Unión (1993). He also got the Lampara Minera and, uncommonly, he got the awards Cartagenera Malagueña and Soleá. His participation in the national and international festivals placed him among the most important flamenco singers. In 2000 in the show…
DUQUENDE
Duquende Juan Rafael Cortés Santiago, singer descendant from a nomadic gypsy family that one day ended in Sabadell, was born in 1965. With no doubt we are in front of one of the most important figures of flamenco in this century. He is the most internationally known artist of his generation. An important physique and a style similar to Camarón’s, his personality is well defined. Duquende tells that since he was a boy he felt passionate about Camarón de la Isla, he even imitated him in the singing and also in his manner of dressing and combing his hair. In…
LA CHUNGA
La Chunga, La Chunga, artistic name of Micaela Flores Amaya, was born in Marsella (France) in 1938. She danced barefoot since she was six years old between the tablaos of the bars in district V of Barcelona. The painter Paco Rebés discovered her. As her patron he tried to turn her into a great dancer and for that he looked for the best dance teacher in Barcelona. Rebés knew that only with the act in which she danced barefoot showing her nice belly bottom was not enough to complete a programme. In the summer of 1953, along with Rebés, La…