theartsdesk in Madrid: Nuevo Flamenco Comes of Age | reviews, news & interviews
theartsdesk in Madrid: Nuevo Flamenco Comes of Age
theartsdesk in Madrid: Nuevo Flamenco Comes of Age
How a traditional old form of Andalusia got modernised in the capital
Sunday, 06 February 2011
Miguel Poveda, one of the nuevo flamenco performers appearing at Sadler's Wells Flamenco FestivalMaxi del Campo
I am far from the first - and in very good company - to worry about the over-commercialisation of flamenco. As far back as in 1922 Manuel de Falla and Federico Garcia Lorca, respectively Spain’s greatest composer and poet of the time, decided to organise a singing competition in Granada in which only singers from the villages were allowed to enter. The polished, preening urban stars of the Café Cantantes were ineligible. My resistance to the genre was partly to do with the Gypsy Kings, amusing enough when you first heard them, but irritating beyond words when heard for years in every wine bar in the world.
I am far from the first - and in very good company - to worry about the over-commercialisation of flamenco. As far back as in 1922 Manuel de Falla and Federico Garcia Lorca, respectively Spain’s greatest composer and poet of the time, decided to organise a singing competition in Granada in which only singers from the villages were allowed to enter. The polished, preening urban stars of the Café Cantantes were ineligible. My resistance to the genre was partly to do with the Gypsy Kings, amusing enough when you first heard them, but irritating beyond words when heard for years in every wine bar in the world.
Nuevo flamenco reflected a new attitude, a new sharpness in dress and look, a new rebellion of the soul, a new Spain
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