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RE: Forecast: Flamenco is dying out. Outlook and suggestion to recover!
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estebanana
Posts: 9413
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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 RE: Forecast: Flamenco is dying out.... (in reply to Morante)
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I don't think the definition of art is something to gloss over if you want to discuss the waining of an art form. Say what you like abut art and marketplace, it's very complicated.
Art is a practice of culture, a discipline that can be formal, or a part of a regional tradition, many things can be art or art process. Art is essentially not a commodity or product even after it enters a market. For example a flamenco dancer practices a performative art, he or she is a cultural conduit, a holder of community tradation and practice. And maker of a art form and person who asses the art form to a generational line of students who in turn keeps it alive. A poet or a painter does much the same thing, or a composer, they all practice a discipilne and are stewards of a cultural heritage. All of them are makers, whether they
make a new form and heritage or they make an old form and pass it on.
The marketplace may or may not be a place where the artist enters to make profit from the art process or work product. What the buyer of art is doing is patronizing a culture and supporting it so that it can 'can continue to exist for the betterment and cultural continuity of humanity. In return for enabling an artist or group of artists to continue to be a part of culture and hold traditions and create new forms the buyer and supporter of art gets a 'work-product', a residue or proof that work was done.
Some cultural work-products enter the market in the form of a ticket to a performance, which is the work product, and others, mainly objects, may enter a market and become commodified, but as such the work product never really loses its primary function as a 'proof' that a culture exists and is being supported by an understand in member of the culture to ensure the discipline continues for good of society and that particular culture the benefactor wishes to be involved with.
It's worth revisiting over and over, for to claim that art is created and is separate from its origins as a cultural practice once it enters a market is to really not understand the depth of what art is capable of. To view art as a binary problem; Art is culture until it reaches a marketplace- is an incorrect and overly simplified concept. The relationship of art to markets is extremely complex in what it means as a culture practice, and its possible absorbsion into a world that commodfies that work product.
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Date May 8 2017 10:03:43
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estebanana
Posts: 9413
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Forecast: Flamenco is dying out.... (in reply to Doitsujin)
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I've been in the arts industry all my life, it's typical of non artists to denigrate the arts and try to frame the arts as something that it is not . It's like telling a doctor or a mechanic that you know more about it than they do.
I've worked in all sides of the arts, curator, exhibit installer, fabricator of exhibit infrastructure and design, worked in galleries, sales, have worked with conservators and museum directors, and I also have had a studio practice making art and guitars since 1978, (were you born yet?) and have a degree in art history and two studio degrees.
But you know more than I do-
I've also played for more and heavy weight dancers than you, and have been deep in flamenco circles of the states and have hung out pretty heavy when I was in Spain.
But you know more because you have charts.
_---------------
El Burro, I would agree. There's too much jazz influence in flamenco for my own taste, but it's not a popular stance. The good thing is if a guitar player elects to go and play in older ways and does it well there is usually acceptance and admiration from the best players. However I have heard a few world class Spanish players diss some of the retro style players. But generally those who pull off older styles with aire and conviction are held up as good flamencos. To me anyway.
Maybe flamenco is ready to reinvent itself? In big arcs of historical overview in art forms, they go through cycles. Old ideas cycle back into favor. Or a form becomes decadent and reinvents itself. Mairena's movement was about reinventing older forms of cante in part, that is possible again, although now it means going to recordings and not digging up the Juan Talega's. The Talegas and Bastian Bacan's etc. are all are all gone. That is unless one is from a family that preserved a line of cante. But this is a well worn conversation.
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Date May 10 2017 4:07:23
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ViejoAmargo
Posts: 39
Joined: Jun. 29 2016
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RE: Forecast: Flamenco is dying out.... (in reply to Doitsujin)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Doitsujin
Graph 1; Alarming decrease of popularity of flamenco throughout time. The trend seems to stabilize at a level of "nobody gives a ****".
Graph 2; Flamenco guitar was always and is much more popular than singing. Cmon... it doesnt need a genius to tell that cante is only a thing for special ppl..
It's absurd to estimate the popularity of flamenco by looking at how many people look up the word "flamenco" in google. Do you (or any one here interested in flamenco) go around typing "flamenco"in google? That would be quite stupid. People who are really interested in flamenco type specific, rather obscure terms they're looking information on. I would never google "flamenco", but I may google something more specific, say, "Niño Miguel", "Serranito", "Museo de la guitarra Sevilla", etc.
The only logical conclusion from the decrease in people looking for "flamenco" in google is that nowadays there are less ignorant people, who were so clueless about flamenco that they had to actually google it... Way more people know what flamenco is now, compared with 2004, thus less people need to google it to find out.
Same with cante. If I'm interested in cante, I won't go randomly googling "flamenco cante", but I'd google something more specific, like a particular palo, or the one cantaor or cantaora who got me interested in cante in the first place.
Your market research skills leave a lot to be desired. Lines on a chart mean nothing if you don't understand what exactly is being plotted.
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Date May 10 2017 4:39:14
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estebanana
Posts: 9413
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Forecast: Flamenco is dying out.... (in reply to ViejoAmargo)
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quote:
It's absurd to estimate the popularity of flamenco by looking at how many people look up the word "flamenco" in google. Do you (or any one here interested in flamenco) go around typing "flamenco"in google? That would be quite stupid. People who are really interested in flamenco type specific, rather obscure terms they're looking information on. I would never google "flamenco", but I may google something more specific, say, "Niño Miguel", "Serranito", "Museo de la guitarra Sevilla", etc.
The only logical conclusion from the decrease in people looking for "flamenco" in google is that nowadays there are less ignorant people, who were so clueless about flamenco that they had to actually google it... Way more people know what flamenco is now, compared with 2004, thus less people need to google it to find out.
Same with cante. If I'm interested in cante, I won't go randomly googling "flamenco cante", but I'd google something more specific, like a particular palo, or the one cantaor or cantaora who got me interested in cante in the first place.
Your market research skills leave a lot to be desired. Lines on a chart mean nothing if you don't understand what exactly is being plotted.
Great post- You win the coveted Gilded Dildo Award!
Just kidding,but great post.
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Date May 10 2017 5:01:56
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estebanana
Posts: 9413
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Forecast: Flamenco is dying out.... (in reply to Piwin)
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quote:
@estebanana
what is the trend in Japan? I keep hearing that it has become a major hub for flamenco now. Do they tend to favor the traditional over more contemporary stuff?
Both. Just lie everywhere else, there are moderns and ancients.
I think Viejo Amargo's post hit it out of the park. Flamenco is more well known now than 20 years ago, and the depth to which to which the average person is going is not that deep, but there are more of them going farther than understanding the Gypsy Kings than ever before.
For example Agujetas came to CA 2010 the venues he played in all sold out for shows of cante solo-without a dance show to go along with with the singing. Just Agujetas and Manuel Valencia, sold out venues. The audiences were mixed older folks and young folks men and women, dance students, guitar students and just general folks.
It work so well he returned in 2012, granted he was Agujetas, but the people finding the promo material were no searching on 'Flamenco' they were learning about it via a private mailing list of the Bay Area Flamenco Festival, or some other way, from radio station promotions and the theaters calendars, etc.
Agujetas had alsoo come to CA and the US in the 1980's and 70's-
The premise of an internet search to determine flamenco popularity is absurd. People who advertise flamenco shows advertise in ways that expose the information to true music patrons to like special kinds of music, people who are not flamenco specialists, but folks who are music seekers that know which venues present unusual or specialty music. The flamenco people have a net work and mailing lists to get information, the music loving listener knows the Gypsy Kings play stadiums and big venues and smaller venues support various kinds of flamenco,
The general public that goes to 'flamenco night' at a restaurant might not know too much, but those venues serve as gateways to deeper listening and exposure. Another reason that flamenco popularity is not represented on an English Google search is because in most area outside Spain flamenco is one of the art forms that people from Latin countries gravitate towards as a greater Spanish speaking community. There is inherent interest in flamenco in pan Hispanic-Latin world, and the way flamenco is known and understood is through popular performers, but also through deeper cultural connection that is linked to Spain and a love of arts that are particular to the Spanish speaking diaspora. So there's always that.
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Date May 10 2017 21:11:38
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. My definition of a good flamenco artist is one who knows all of the palos, knows how to sing them and favours cante grande. This kind of artist is disappearing. When I settled in Cádiz 20 years ago, a juerga was with a real cantaor, who might sing polo instead of soleá or marianas instead of tangos. 
