Dan Downing<\/p>\n
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I first experienced Flamenco up-close-and-personal in a restaurant-theatre in Madrid in May of 2000. I got to spend the better part of a week there on a business trip with two business colleagues and their wives. Linda had been invited to come also, but being the middle of the school year, she had to decline.<\/p>\n
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We\u00c3\u00add been seated at a table maybe 15 feet from the raised stage, and feasted on tapas and local fare before the show came on. Over the next hour or so, four men, dressed plainly in blacks and browns, and five women in colorful, flowing, gypsy outfits, created and wrapped around us an organic experience that was less choreography and performance than genuine outpouring of emotion. It was, for me, a transcendent experience. It left me intoxicated, shaking, unable to communicate the feeling to my colleagues, and aching for Linda to be there sharing it with me.<\/p>\n
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Tonight I finally got to share with her this ancient Spanish art form. Our orchestra seats in Row G at the Emerson Majestic Theatre placed us as nearly as close to the stage as I had been in Madrid.<\/p>\n
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I read to Linda from the Playbill before curtain time. \u00c3\u00acFlamenco is a storm of dance, song, and acoustic guitar, set to a lively beat, inside of which the dancer-singers improvise, using their bodies as instruments, bellowing and tapping out a wail of human suffering and grief that is the cultural root of this 15th-century Andalusian genre<\/a>.\u00c3\u00ae<\/p>\n \n But no words are adequate to convey the whirling-dervish-cum-tap-dancing, deep bass male cante<\/i>, staccato clapping, accompanied by impeccably strummed guitar chords, and accented by \u00c3\u00acallez!\u00c3\u00ae as they cheer each other on, that is the live event.<\/p>\n \n Linda loved it. And agreed that our next vacation should be to Spain.<\/p>\n \n For those intrigued, Flamenco Festival 2004 <\/i><\/a>will bring an Andalusian dance troupe to the Majestic at the end of January. <\/p>\n \n Let\u00c3\u00ads all<\/i> go!<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dan Downing I first experienced Flamenco up-close-and-personal in a restaurant-theatre in Madrid in May of 2000. I got to spend the better part of a week there on a business trip with two business colleagues and their wives. Linda had … Continue reading