Barcelona - My first Flamenco experience

My language school organised a Flamenco event for this week and I thought as I’ve never seen it live it would be a good chance to do it.

It was quite hard to find the place, it is on a residential street where you would never expect to find a Flamenco school.

It had two little rooms, one where they teach and one at the back where the actual performances are. It was a little room full of tiny chairs and a candle to give light. To be honest, it did not look very serious.

We sat down and waited for the show. There were only about twenty of us to watch the show so it seemed very intimate. We were sitting in the middle but as nobody was in front of us, we could see everything close up.

Two men came in, one had the flamenco guitar and the other one was the singer and the show started. It was so different to everything I’ve heard before and these people were obviously artists. They were watching and reacting to each other hinting that they have been working together for a long time.

More people came in later, one sat down on a box that I thought was an amplifier but turned out to be a drum (!), the other one was clapping and then the last one started to dance. I’m not going to tell you how amazing they were, see it for yourself.

By the time the dancer finished he was covered in sweat. They all give everything in whatever part they are playing. 

We had a 15 min break when others asked for a drink and we went to explore the room next door with Paul. We found some interesting things.

After the break we went back for the second part of the show. Us foreigners just watched with our jaws dropped but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there’s a part of it that we are completely missing. The few Spanish girls in the audience seemed to be actually part of the performance. They clapped the rhythm together with the musicias and when the passion ran high they clapped louder and said ‘ole’ when one of the performers did something especially great. I’m not sure I can put it into words properly but it seemed to me that while we were just spectators they actually understood the depth of the performance.

Here’s the finale.

    

I can definitely say that the experience was incredible. These guys looked like they just walked in from the street and they showed us something that has decades of practice behind. There were no flashy dresses, no stylish outfits and flowers that the tourists usually expect and get, it was just Flamenco. But somehow it brought the dance and the music closer to us and showed the passion in a purer form.

We’re very glad we saw these guys and if you’d like to see them as well, they perform there every Friday on Carrer de Progres, 38, Gracia. Here’s their website. Go and check them out!