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Kate -> Habichuelas en El Sacromonte (Sep. 1 2005 15:40:27)
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Hey Simon, sorry you could not make it last night, it was quite a special night and the party carried on afterwards with everyone jamming.
I'm posting this here because I thought I'd tell everyone about the young guitarist who played last night as he was pretty special and someone to look out for. His name is Juanillo and he is one of the Habichuelas, grandson to Juan Carmona Habichuela who was also there last night, looking very well but sadly not playing. Juanillo opened the evening with Rafaela ( wife of Rafael Santiago Habichuela, Juan Carmona's cousin) singing and El Morena ( their son) on percussion and la Repompa dancing.
Now a quick word about this dancer as I remember a thread here a while back where it was argued that dancers were not musicians, well I have always though that dancers were percussionists and last night was no exception. In fact watching La Repompa beat out the compás in 32s while arching her back, clapping her hands and leap flying across the stage like a demon was awe inspiring and the musicians around me just gasped and stood with mouths hanging open. Anyone who made it to Emilio Maya's Uk gigs in Nottingham and Brighton will have seen this dancer. She makes quite an impression.
Oh and another digression .....excuse me while I rant .... afterwards I was talking to a young woman who said she was a flamenco dancer ( not sure if she was a professional or just that she took classes) from Austria who told me that she thought the dancer lacked elegance. She had assumed that as a foreigner I would not know the dancer, or much about flamenco. I replied "I guess if you want elegance you go for trained ballet style dancers and not Gitanas who learnt from their mother's knee, or in this case her aunt ( the famous La Repompa de Malaga)". I should have asked her which dancers she liked especially as she is writing a thesis on the culture behind flamenco but her statement about elegance intrigued me enough to ask her how she would write about the the payo/gitano question of flamenco. After all for me without a doubt the flamenco culture is Gitano, even if you are Payo flamenco artist and by saying the Gitana dancer lacked elegance I took it that she prefered sanitised choreographed elegant flamenco. Anway she told me she had no opinion on that, or perhaps she was scared as I was probably looking a little fierce and ready to attack.
The reason I am bothered about this so much is there we were watching a dynasty of Gypsy artists who have shaped and upheld flamenco for generations. Meanwhile she was talking about writing an academic thesis about flamenco culture without taking into account the Gypsy one. Then I got to worrying who will judge this thesis and at what point will her thesis become regarded as an academic truth, and a basis for another thesis. Ah well if I bump into her again I shall enjoy a good academic debate [;)] or maybe knives at dawn [:D]
Back to the gig, the second part of the performance was Emilio Maya on guitar, with Victor 'EL Charico' and Juan Angel EL Tirado' singing, Juan Masana on bass and el Moreno on percussion. Emilio played a lot from his album and it was great to see Juan Carmona Habichuela pull up his chair and listen intently. The show ended with la Repompa taking the stage again and behind me I heard a man say " Es muy mujer, pero MUY MUJER"
The show took place at the Centro de Interpretación in the Sacromonte barrio of Granada. Anyway coming to Granada should check it out for flamenco shows and also film screenings. Nothing better than a cool evening watching flamenco films in the open air with a beer, surrounded by the caves of the Sacromonte. There is also a musuem there, in that they have renovated caves to show the crafts, the forge, etc and a rather sanitised way of Gypsy life. One cave is dedicated to the history of the Sacromonte Gypsies and they have the famous old picture of the original Habichuela flamencos, a young girl with a guitar and an old man standing and singing. They also have all the local plants growing there, all labelled, and explanations ( in English) of the geological make-up of the two micro climates the Sacromonte hill and the Alhambra hill. Oh yes and it has fantastic views. Worth a visit.
Phew long post, sorry
Kate
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