Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-29T00:00:00.000-08:00

I have a green dress,
green as an olive,
and a flower for my hair,
white as the moon,
and lips for loving you
that taste of warm honey.

Tengo un vestido verde,
verde aceituna,
y una flor pa' mi pelo
blanca de luna,
y pa' quererte unos
labios que saben
a miel caliente.

Bulerias/Alba & Manuel Molina

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-28T00:00:00.000-08:00

With just a glance
you will understand
how much I love you,
and you will also understand
how much I long to speak to
you but cannot.

Solamente con mirarte
comprenderas que yo a ti
te quiero,
y tambien comprenderas
que quiero hablarte y no puedo.

Solea por Bulerias/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

"It's not a question of being taught how to sing. Diego sang with tones before he spoke. Antonio, his eldest brother, played the guitar by the time he was five. My father never let us listen to what most people call flamenco, which is full of rumba and that kind of stuff. I think that's why he took us out of school. School teaches you a lot but it takes things away, too. They made Antonio stand against the wall because he was always tapping out rhythms. They tried to punish the compas out of him."

Dolores Agujetas/Cantaora

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-26T00:00:00.000-08:00

You are brown and poor,
even browner than
the cinnamon that the nobles eat.

Eres morenita y pobre,
mas morena que la canela
que la comen los señores.

Bulerias/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-25T00:00:00.000-08:00

"I think flamenco singing comes from the first man who fell down and cried "ouch" ("Ay"). Then came the Ay Ay Ay Ay...I believe it must have come from there."

"Yo pienso que el cante flamenco puede haber venido o viene de un llanto... del primer hombre que se cayo y dijo... Ay...y empezo ya.. Ay Ay Ay Ay. Yo creo que eso tiene que venir por ahi."

El Chocolate/Cantaor

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

I don't much like blondes;
they don't know how to kiss.
What I like are dark-haired girls,
'cause from their mouths come kisses
that take away all sorrows.

A mi no me gustan las rubias
porque no saben besar.
A mi me gustan las morenas
porque de sus bocas salen besos
que quitan las penas.

Bulerias/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-23T00:00:00.000-08:00

I should have cut
my rose that day,
pure, passionate,
sombre-hued,
while the two golden
logs burned.

Yo debi cortar
mi rosa aquel dia,
pura apasionada
de color sombria
al par que los troncos
dorados ardian.

Federico Garcia Lorca/Poet

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

They say I don't speak to you
because I didn't have the guts
to break down the wall
your mother raised against me.

Dicen que yo a ti no te hablo
porque no terelaba valor
pa' tomar esa murallita
que tu madre levanto.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-21T00:00:00.000-08:00

Whenever I look at the place
where I used to meet you,
my poor eyes begin
crying drops of blood.

Cada vez que miro el sitio
donde te he solido hablar,
comienzan mis pobres ojos
gotas de sangre a llorar.

Andalusian Poem from Lorca's 'In Search of Duende'

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

When I pass by your door,
I say a Hail Mary,
as if you were dead.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-19T00:00:00.000-08:00

"If you have a **picado that is hard for you, you have to spend sixteen days doing it backwards; then, later when you do it forward, you will do it in your own way and much easier."

Paco del Gastor/Guitarrista 1987

**Flamenco guitar technique which uses the index and middle fingers.

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

The fountains of Granada,
have you ever heard,
in the perfumed, starry night,
anything more sorrowful than their sad moan?
Everything rests, in idle enchantment
in the fluid silver of the moon.

Las fuentes de Granada,
habeis sentido en la noche
de estrellas perfumada
algo mas doloroso que su triste gemido?
Todo reposa en vago encantamiento
en la plata fluida de la luna.

from "El Alcazar de las Perlas" by Francisco Villaespesa/Poet

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

" A gypsy wedding took place in a bodega or courtyard. The girls to be married would put on frills, and lots of flowers and lace. Half of the choir would be unmarried girls, virgins...not like the ones today who take seven pills a week and are always "virgins." In the old days, they were real virgins, all beautiful, and in white dresses. On the other side stood the boys, who would invite the girls to dance. Before the wedding, the girl's virginity was tested by older women (from the groom's family) who checked to see that things were intact with a handkerchief wrapped around a finger. This was given to the bridegroom to keep. A wedding would go on for days!"

Maria Solea/Cantaora

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

I am so filled with pleasure
when I have you by my side,
that even if I were to die,
I would still go on craving you
for a hundred years.

Tengo el gusto tan colmado
cuando te tengo a mi vera,
que si me diera la muerte,
cien años la apeteciera.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

"You can't look for duende. If you try to find it, it will evade you and you won't find it even at the end of the world. You have to wait for it to come to you... when I find myself with duende, I am capable of taking on the world...my eyes shine. You notice the duende has arrived when you begin to sing slowly, relaxed, with deep emotion, with a glazed look and your mouth tasting of blood. For me, duende is the pure essence of flamenco."

Juan Moreno Maya "El Pele"/Cantaor

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

Gossiping tongues are saying
that you do not love anyone,
when I know in my bones that
you are wasting away with
desire for me.

Malas lenguas van diciendo
que tu no camelas a nadie,
cuando se por mis huesos
tu andas perdiendo carnes.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

Miners must be lions
since they're sent down in cages;
they work among the rock
and die buried by it,
to give the rich man millions.

Los mineros son leones
que los bajan enjaulados,
trabajan entre peñones
y alli mueren sepultados
dandole al rico milliones.

Mineras/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

If the mother of my soul
looked up and saw me
as I see myself
she would die of sorrow.

Si la momaita mia de mis entrañas
levantara su cabeza
y me viera como me veo
se moriria de tristeza.

Martinete/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-11T06:00:00.000-08:00

"When my grandfather sang at night, my grandmother would open her arms...how she danced with her arms! If a payo (non-gypsy man) appeared in the doorway, my grandfather would say. "'close the door, girl, for I don't want the payos seeing my wife and children dance.'"

Maria Solea/Cantaora

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-10T06:00:00.000-08:00

Your love is like the wind,
and mine like the stone
that never moves.

Es tu querer como el viento
y el mio como la piedra
que no tiene movimiento.

Solea por Buleria/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-09T06:00:00.001-08:00

"So many young people come out playing and devour the guitar. It is frightening! What happens is they don't know when to slow down. They don't caress the guitar. The guitar is like a woman. You have to show her who is boss when she deserves it, but then you also have to say, 'how beautiful you are'..."

Juan Habichuela/Guitarrista 1988

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-08T06:00:00.000-08:00

To console me, my friends say,
visit your lover's tomb.
Has she a tomb, I ask,
other than in my breast?

Ibn Sa'id/Arab-Andalusian Poet

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-07T06:00:00.000-08:00

Much art, very little noise. Very little art, lots of noise.

Mucho arte, poco ruido. Poco arte, mucho ruido.

A common saying, used very often by gypsies to critique flamenco artists.

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

"Of course there are differences between the non-gypsy and gypsy dance. The gypsy is not as well prepared as the non-gypsy, has less schooling, which causes the dance to develop in the moment, more from intuition. It is more "salvaje" (wild, primitive, savage) and more influenced by temperament than by studied postures. That is not to say that one is better than the other, just that they are different. However, the dance that dominates today is non-gypsy, that of much preparation and study. If we gypsies, who are a privileged race, worried as much as they do, it would be horrible. We would lose that wildness that appeals so much to the true aficionado."

Curro Fernandez/Cantaor

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-05T06:00:00.000-08:00

For the man who is deeply in love,
even at night in his bed
love robs him of sleep.

Al hombre que esta queriendo,
hasta de noche en la cama
el querer le quita el sueño.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

"Gypsies can smell you, and if they don't like your scent there is nothing you can do!"

El Cabrero/Cantaor

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-03T06:00:00.000-08:00

I don't want her to know,
she who was once mine alone,
that in my deep sighs for her,
life is slipping away.

No quiero que se entere,
quien solo era mia,
que en mis profundos
suspiros por ella
se me va la vida.

Seguiriya/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-02T06:00:00.000-08:00

"I was born on La Calle Feria where everything was flamenco. There was Chacon, La Niña de los Peines, La Malena, Pastora Imperio...I can't begin to tell you. So in that barrio I cut my teeth on flamenco. I don't want to criticize, but these flamencologists who write this and that about flamenco today don't know anything." " When I was thirteen, I was a ragged little girl, thin and pretty ugly, although I was like a wild animal, a young colt. Then, later they began to tell me how well the flamenco dress suited me. How elegant it looked."

Manuela Vargas/Bailaora

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2012-01-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

“I would just as easily play for Manuela Carrasco, the most flamenco
artist in the world, as for a pop group.” "I think that to do flamenco,
you don’t have to jump on a trampoline. You watch Manuela Carrasco
dance... and that’s the flamenco I like, just like that. I dance por soleá,
you accompany me and let’s go. Nowadays there are really complex,
really heavily rehearsed shows, but everything’s a little more fictional.”

“Lo mismo me iba con Manuela Carrasco, la más flamenca del mundo,
que con un grupo de pop.” "Yo creo que para hacer flamenco no hay
que tirarse de un trampolín. A Manuela Carrasco la ves bailar... y ese
es el flamenco que a mí me gusta, sin más. Bailo por soleá, tú me
acompañas y pa’lante. Hoy en día hay obras muy complejas, muy
ensayadísimas, pero es un poco más ficticio todo.”

Antonio Rey/Guitarrista

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-31T06:00:00.000-08:00

You have such large eyes,
as big as millstones,
and they grind up hearts
like so many grains of wheat.

Tienes los ojitos grandes,
como piedras de molino,
y parten los corazones,
como granitos de trigo.

Alegrias/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-30T06:00:00.000-08:00

You dress in red
while I dress myself in black,
thinking you have left me.

Te vistes de colorado
y yo me visto de negro,
pensando que me has dejado.

Tientos/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-29T06:00:00.000-08:00

There is nothing left to see,
because the little boat that
was there has set sail and
gone away.

Alli no hay naita que ver:
porque un barquito que
habia, tendio la vela y
se fue.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

...Palmas is a difficult skill which few master to perfection, and those who do not should best refrain from attempting it in serious flamenco. The gypsies are masters of this art.

Barbara Thiel Cramer/Author

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

There, still in my bed,
in the small hollow she left,
is the pin from her hair,
and the little comb she used
to hold it there.

Todavia esta en mi cama
el hoyito que dejo,
la orquillita de su pelo,
y el peine que la peino.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

"They lived all of this first-hand... They'd be in a forge, one of them
with the hammer, the other working the metal, and the other... All of
them with different rhythms and different ways of singing. When you
hear a martinete in a theater, and you see one of them with a hammer,
singing to himself, it has nothing to do with what would happen in a
forge, with the bellows creating a rhythm, the hammer another, and so
on. And I think that the same thing must happen in the country. And if
you're at sea, the air gets inside you and makes you sing a certain
way."

"Esto como lo han vivido tan de cerca… es que estaban metidos en una
fragua. Uno con el mazo, otro con el moldeador y el otro… todos con
diferentes compases, todos con diferentes formas de cantar… cuando
escuchas un martinete en un teatro y ves a uno con el martillo
tocándose y cantándose, no tiene nada que ver cuando entras en una
fragua y el del fuelle está haciendo un ritmo, el que moldea está
haciendo otro y el base otro. Y me imagino que en el campo sería igual.
Y si estás en la mar, el aire se te va impregnando dentro y eso te hace
cantar de una manera".

Diego Carrasco/Cantaor

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

James A. Michener writing about an incident that touched him deeply:

"Thus the great fair of Sevilla continues, day after day. Toward dawn on the last night I stood at the entrance to the Aero Club as members of the nobility departed for the last time, and in the street stood an old man leading a donkey. He was not the kind who would own a caseta, nor a horse to ride in the daily procession, nor even a job in one of the carnivals. He was a rural peasant come in with his donkey to see the sights, and as he watched the ending of the fair he sang:

'Yo soy un anima infeliz,
perdida en este mundo atormentado.
I am a miserable spirit
lost in this tormented world.'

And as he wandered off, singing to himself, the tents of the five circuses were coming down. The parking lot where the carnival trucks waited came back to life and electricians were disconnecting their wires from the multitude of little casetas which would soon vanish."

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

I want to live in Granada
because I like to hear
the bell of La Vela
as I fall asleep.

Quiero vivir en Granada
porque me gusta el oir
la campana de La Vela
cuando me voy a dormir.

Media Granaina/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

The hour is late. The gitano's guitar stilled in the turning air. On the esquina a small band of shadows. He comes to them and together they wind through the narrow passageways of the Barrio Santa Cruz, carrying centuries in their blood, where home is nowhere, nowhere else.

Gloria Lewyn/Poet

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

Federico Garcia Lorca writing on seguiriyas...

...There are songs where the lyrical tremor reaches a point inaccessible to any but a few poets:

The moon has a halo; my love has died.

Cerco tiene la luna; mi amor ha muerto.

There is much more mystery in those two lines than in all the plays of Maeterlinck. Simple, real mystery, sound and healthy, without gloomy forests or rudderless ships. It is the living eternal enigma of death:

The moon has a halo; my love has died.

...Behind these poems lurks a terrible question that has no answer. Our people cross themselves in prayer, look at the stars, and wait in vain for a sign of salvation. The gesture is pathetic but true. And the poem either poses a deep emotional question with no answer, or solves it with death, which is the question of questions.

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

"Flamenco Puro ...must come from within, without conscious effort to make an impression; that the creative artist must sing, dance or play for himself, even with the audience around him; that he be completely committed to his art, deaf and blind to everything else; that he give of himself one hundred per cent."

Barbara Thiel-Cramer/Author

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-20T06:00:00.000-08:00

"To find Triana one has to search blindly on roads not of this earth,
mazes woven with dreams, through lukewarm ashes of agonizing emotion...
and all the while knowing that, we will probably still never find her. "

"A Triana hay que buscarla a ciegas por caminos oníricos, laberintos
trenzados de sueños, entre las tibias cenizas de un sentimiento
agónico, sabiendo además que, a lo mejor, no la encontraremos nunca."

Anonymous Cantaor commenting on the cante of Triana

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-19T06:00:00.000-08:00

In a green meadow I laid out
my handkerchief and three
roses appeared like three
evening stars.
The wedding is complete.
What a beautiful wedding!
God has blessed such a pretty star.

En un pradito verde tendi
mi pañuelo...
me salieron tres rosas
como tres luceros.
Se logro la boda...
que boda tan bella
que Un Dibe bendijo
a tan bonita estrella.

Alborea/Traditonal Gypsy Wedding Song

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

The dancer's trembling heart must bring everything into harmony, from the tips of her shoes to the flutter of her eyelashes, from the rustles of her dress to the incessant play of her fingers. Shipwrecked in a field of air, she must measure lines, silences, zigzags and rapid curves, with a sixth sense of aroma and geometry, without ever mistaking her terrain. In this she resembles the torero, whose heart must keep to the neck of the bull. Both of them face the same danger--he, death; and she, darkness.

Federico Garcia Lorca/Poet from In Praise of Antonia Merce

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-17T06:00:00.001-08:00

Malena had a little stand where
she sold sunflower seeds
to the little ones.
Malena of mine, Malena of mine,
come dance a little buleria!

La Malena tenia un puestesillo
que vendia sus pipas, pa' los
chiquillos.
Malena mia, Malena mia,
date una vueltesita por buleria.

Bulerias/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

To help us seek duende there is neither map nor discipline.
All one knows is that it burns the blood like powdered glass,
that it exhausts, that it rejects all the sweet geometry one has
learned, that it breaks with all styles.

Federico Garcia Lorca, Flamenco Poet
From Theory and Function of the Duende

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

After the husband of the woman he loved slit
Curro Pablas' stomach and took her back,
Pablas lived long enough to sing this song:

I am going to the graveyard
oh, God! Little companion of my soul,
don't let me die so alone;
I want to die by your side.

Al cementario me voy,
por dios! Companerita de mi alma,
no me dejes morir tan solito;
quiero morir a tu vera.

Seguiriyas

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

"Because in this story of flamenco everything is 'me, me, me,' and if there's any room left, it's 'me', too, you know what I mean?"

"Porque en esta historia, sobre todo en el flamenco, todo es "yo, y yo y yo", y si sobra un trocito en el cartel pues también yo... Ya sabes lo que te digo."

Javier Latorre/Bailaor

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-13T06:00:00.001-08:00

The Flamenco always comes at the end of the night
after you have given up all your forces
It comes like a wounded, galloping horse
Whose rider was lost in battle
Sweating dark, bright stars

It comes like the desperate fingers
That dig into the body of the other
In the wounded moment of love's summit

It comes like a Hemorrhage of blood
And gray wind at the top of the trees

It comes to devour the soul
in the rain that weeps over the world

It comes from the dark matter
That dreams are made of

Because It does not come to ask
Only to respond
And to lose oneself forever
Amid the screams of the crows in the wind
On the plain

And from your own nothingness
It is only the knife and not the wound
It is only the knife and not the blood
It is the Brightness of the blade
And not the Iron

El Flamenco siempre llega al final de la noche
Cuando abandonaste todo

El llega como un caballo galopante y herido
Que perdio a su jinete en la batalla
Oscuro y brillante de la traspiracion de las estrellas

El viene como dedos desesperados
Clavandose en el cuerpo del otro
En el momento de la cumbre del amor

El viene como hemorragia
Y viento gris en la cupula de los arboles

El Viene a devorar el alma
En la lluvia que llora el mundo

El viene de la corriente
Oscura material
Que de el estan hechos los suenos

Que el no ha venido a preguntar
Que vino solo para responder
Que viene a perderte para siempre
Entre los gritos de los cuervos en el viento
Sobre el llano

Dentro de lo que no hay en tu mismo
El es solo el cuchillo y no la herida
El es solo el cuchillo y no la sangre
El es la brillante punta del filo
Y no el hierro

Shem Shemy; Director of the film "Por El Flamenco"
http://www.ruthfilms.com/por-el-flamenco.html

New Web Address: www.MATADORAFLAMENCA.com
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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

Sometime, if only out of pity,
write to me sometime,
for my heart is so withered
with suffering that it can no
longer even feel pain.

Alguna vez
siquiera por compasion
escribeme alguna vez,
que yo tengo el corazon
marchito de padecer
que ya no siente ni el dolor.

Malagueña/La Trini

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-11T06:00:00.000-08:00

George Borrow, writing in the nineteenth century on the history of gypsies in Spain draws this conclusion:

The gypsy women and girls were the principal attractions to these visitors. There can be no doubt...that they are capable of exciting passion of the most ardent description, particularly in the bosoms of those who are not of their race. No females in the world can be more licentious in word and gesture, in dance and song, than the gitanas.

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-10T06:00:00.000-08:00

She loosed her robe,
that I might see
her body, lissome as a tree.
The rosebud opened in that hour
and oh, the beauty of my flower.

Al Mutamid/Poet-King of Sevilla

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

What kind of bird is that singing
in the olive tree?
Go and tell it to hush...
its singing hurts me so much.

Que pajaro sera aquel que
canta en la verde oliva?
Corre y dile que se calle...
que su cante me lastima.

Tientos/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-08T06:00:00.000-08:00

"An art that turns its guts inside out and refuses to hide behind the mask of beauty...that is the real flamenco. Clearly this is not some superficial form of entertainment. Flamenco does not please, it is inherently not pleasing."

Claus Schreiner/Author

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-07T06:00:00.000-08:00

Virgin of Macarena,
the moon's reflection
shines on your dark little face.
There is no face like your face,
nor sorrow like your sorrow.

Virgen de la Macarena
reflejo de luna clara
da en tu carita morena.
No hay cara como tu cara,
ni pena como tu pena.

Saeta/Traditionally sung to the Virgin Mary and Crucified Christ during Holy Week in Sevilla

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

Just as the forge becomes
a flame of gold,
So do my insides
when I remember you,
and I weep.

Asi, como esta la fragua
echa candela de oro,
se me ponen las entrañas
cuando te recuerdo, y lloro.

Martinete/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-05T06:00:00.000-08:00

Ardent struggle, endless vigil, like all art...the dancer battles the air around her, air that threatens at any moment to destroy her harmony or to open huge empty spaces where her rhythm will be annihilated.

Federico Garcia Lorca/Poet

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

Manuela Carrasco and I started out together, in the Cochera, a tablao in Seville. In the cuadro there was Lole Montoya, Farruquito, Manuela, and myself. Farruco always used to come and watch the cuadro and he would define us, saying that she was more a heelwork dancer, and I was more arms. Although we both dance with temperament, her way of dancing is completely different from mine.

Concha Vargas/Bailaora

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-03T06:00:00.000-08:00

Though I tear the
hands off of my watch,
time will not stop.

Agujas de mi reloj
que yo las iba arrancando,
y el tiempo no se paro.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-02T06:00:00.000-08:00

These songs, to be born, must come from the singer
after fighting his own voice and falling into an ecstasy
of inwardness that will draw everyone around him
into a vortex of feeling, wrapped round by that voice,
a guitar, and the sound of naked palms beating, and surging
down the dark line that runs from nothingness to nothingness
through life.

Felix Grande

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-12-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

Even after death I am
bound to keep on loving you.
For a man loves too, when dead.
I love you from my soul, and
the soul never dies.

Hasta despues de la muerte
te tengo que estar queriendo,
que muerto tambien se quiere.
Yo te quiero con el alma,
y el alma nunca se muere.

Fandangos/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-30T09:00:00.000-08:00

When I pass by your side
and your dress brushes against me,
a deep shudder runs through my bones.

Cuando paso por tu vera
y me roza tu vestido,
hasta los huesos me tiemblan.

Solea por Bulerias/ Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-29T06:00:00.000-08:00

The figure of the cantaor lies between two great lines:
the great arc of the heavens on the outside and the
zigzag of the serpent in his soul on the inside.

Federico Garcia Lorca/Flamenco Poet

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

The flowers begin to weep
seeing you enter the garden;
because every flower wants
to look like you.

Al verte las flores lloran,
cuando entras en tu jardin,
porque las flores quisieran
todas parecerse a ti.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

Of the guitar players of today I really like, for the respect that he shows towards flamenco: Martín Revuelo, of the good guitar playing. In the baile (dance) area, Carmelilla Montoya, daughter of Carmen Montoya, who is a magnificent bailaora, but who hasn't danced for a long time now. It is a crime for this woman to be treated as an outcast, when she is such a great professional.

Paco Lira/Owner, La Carboneria, Sevilla

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

I went out to the fields to cry
like a mad man screaming,
and even the wind kept telling
me that you loved someone else.

Al campo me fui a llorar
dando voces como un loco,
y hasta el aire me decia
que tu querias a otro.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

Me, do what you tell me to do? For twenty minutes? No, no I can't. This is not how it is done, daughter. You do it! These people nowadays spend their lives in the rehearsal studio, all of them, Canales, Cortés, Sara Baras, they’re all prefabricated! I get up there on stage and “here I am folks!” No one does that any more nowadays, and on top of everything, they don’t give you an inch.

¿Voy a hacer lo que tú me digas? ¿veinte minutos?...no, no puedo, esto no es así hija mía…¡hazlo tú!...se tiráis la vida ensayando, todos los que hay hoy, Canales, Cortés, Sara Baras ¡todos viven del ensayo! Yo me pongo allí arriba y venga, a dar la cara y a improvisar, a ver quién hace eso hoy en día, y encima no te quieren dar paso.

La Cañeta de Malaga/Flamenco Singer

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

One day I went to the asylum;
it weighs heavily on me.
In the patio I saw a madwoman
giving her breast to suckle
a rag doll.

Yo entre un dia en el manicomio
me peso haberlo hecho;
yo vi una loca en el patio,
se sacaba y daba el pecho
a una muneca de trapo.

Fandango Grande/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

If you’re going to play soleá or siguiriya with the sound of minera, look, I think that’s senseless, soleá is soleá, and siguiriya is siguiriya, and each form should sound distinctive, tientos should sound like tientos, tangos, bulerías, etc... I understand it’s very difficult to change the tuning, and they do it to show off to other guitarists, but often the most difficult thing is to find meaningful simplicity, to be able to communicate something with just two notes instead of twenty.

Paco Cepero/Flamenco Guitarist

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

Farewell Oh beautiful girl, Oh
scented rose. You
will go towards love and I will go toward death.
The blood in my heart flourishes
like an open spring.

Federico Garcia Lorca/Flamenco Poet
from "A Ballad on a Day in July"

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

When I loved you most
I had to forget you,
otherwise I would have died.

Cuando yo mas te queria,
me preciso el olvidarte,
porque si no me moria.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-20T06:00:00.000-08:00

Invisible to my eyes, thou art ever present to my heart.
Thy happiness I desire to be infinite, as are my sighs, my tears, and my sleepless nights!
Impatient of the bridle when other women seek to guide me, thou makest me submissive to thy lightest wishes.
My desire each moment is to be at thy side - speedily may it be fulfilled!
Ah! my heart's darling, think of me, and forget me not, however long my absence!
Dearest of names! I have written it, I have now traced that delicious word – I'timad!

Al Mu'tamid/Poet King of Sevilla (this poem was dedicated to his wife, I'timad, a slave whose freedom he purchased)

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-19T06:00:00.000-08:00

My betrothed is a watchmaker.
Whenever he comes to see me
the minute hand stops.

Es mi novio relojero.
Cada vez que viene a verme
se le para el minutero.

Bulerias/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

Through the expression of anguished sensuality
vibrates the sorrow of the Semitic races, oppressed
and tortured, constrained into hiding their sentiments,
obliged to express nothing but love. In these songs of
love that we hear, so passionate and sensual, we
perceive without realizing it, the plaint of these oppressed
races who do not remember precisely the reason for their cry,
but do remember their sadness and their lamentations.

Rafael Cansinos Assens
La Copla Andaluza

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

Don't ask me to come back to you,
for I am no longer the man I once was.
If time could be turned around
I would already have gone back.

No me llames a tu lado
si ya no valgo lo que valia.
Si el tiempo admitiera vuelta,
que ya pasito pa' atras daria.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

All who deserve it should
be stabbed in the heart,
for my insides ache from being
so good to you.

Mala puñalada le den
a to' que diera motivo,
que me duelen las entrañas
de hacerlo bien contigo.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

"Trousers are unforgiving; they show up
every mistake and they give you nothing
to take hold of."

Carmen Amaya/Bailaora

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

If you hear the bell toll,
don't ask who has died.
Your own remorse will
tell you.

Si oyes doblar las campanas
no preguntes quien ha muerto
porque a ti te lo dira
tu mismo remordimiento.

Pe------/Traditional, attributed to the Sephardic Jews during the Inquisition. Gypsy superstition surrounding this form prevents the name of the form from being written or spoken out loud. It is said to bring death.

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

“In dancing, not only the dance is important, it’s also a look, a move of the head, the way you pick up your skirt, the way you raise your arms at just the right moment, how you remain still or move your feet when the time is right. It’s not something I searched for, it was already inside me. I think I know how to do it in the right places. What can I tell you about my strong points? I think my feet are strong, and my arms, because I never forget them. I try never to destructure the line”.

Manuela Carrasco/Bailaora

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

Her piercing eyes cut my heart in two,
And my eyes wept with longing for her,
And I would kiss the lips behind the veil,
And embrace the pearl necklace above
your embroidered sash.

A Love Poem or "Ghazal" by Al Mutamid, Poet-King of Sevilla

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-11T06:00:00.000-08:00

Long live Granada, the Moorish queen,
land bathed by the river Genil.
Blessed be the morning
that I met you,
with your pure gypsy face.

Viva Granada la sultana
tierra que baña el Genil.
Bendita sea la mañana
en que yo te conoci
con tu cara tan gitana.

Granaina/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-10T06:00:00.000-08:00

On this life's journey
the rich ride on horseback,
gentlemen walk,
and the poor drag themselves along.

En el viaje de la vida
van los ricos a caballo,
los caballeros a pata,
y los pobres arrastrando.

Copla Andaluza/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

I leave the door ajar
so that sometime it might
tempt you to try.

Dejo la puerta entornada
por si alguna vez te diera
la tentacion de empujar.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-08T06:00:00.000-08:00

Though I have a well in my house,
I am dying of thirst
because the rope is not
long enough.

Tengo yo un pozo en mi casa,
y yo me muero de sed
porque la soga no alcanza.

Tientos/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-07T06:00:00.000-08:00

In my opinion, Moron guitar isn't a style of playing, but a way of touching the strings, depending heavily on the base strings, and free of advanced technique. The thing is, there are people who think I've got a lot of nerve to say such a thing. But now that Paco de Lucía has also said it, maybe things will change, don't you think?

Daniel Mendez/Guitarrista 2002

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

In the caves at dawn, when the singer is hoarse
and the room is cold, when the wine is crusted
on the glasses and the eyelids close in exhaustion;
that is the time when the singer and the voice and
the song may find their moment.

Attributed to Molina/Cantaor

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-05T06:00:00.000-07:00

If I know some twenty distinct definitions of flamenco,
it is because I have asked that many aficionados to
express the meaning of the art they love. I could have
enjoyed thirty definitions if I had bothered to ask ten others.

Ken Haas/Photographer

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

Just like the Jews,
though they burn me alive,
I won't deny what I have been.

Como los judios,
aunque las carnes me quemen,
no reniego de lo que he sido.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

"I don't know if it's because I was lucky enough to have been born
with maestro Farruco's genes, but I don't like anyone dancing. And
it's something I've been wanting to say."

Farruquito/Bailaor 2003

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

"We should always recognize that the beauty of Spain is not serene,
is not soft, not restful--it is ardent, burning, excessive,
sometimes unpredictable; a beauty which, blinded by its own splendor
'knocks its head against the wall'."

Federico Garcia Lorca

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-11-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

The sheep were white and small
and the meadow green;
the little shepherd who watches over them,
mother, is dying of heartbreak.

Ovejitas eran blancas
y el pradito verde;
el pastorcito, madre, que las guarda
de ducas se muere.

Siguiriyas/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-10-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

What memories have you of Seville in the thirties?

"Triana and the Alameda made a point of being different: the people from Triana were always very proud and seldom came to "Seville"; if you wanted to hear them you had to cross the river, and they also made a big thing about not ever catering to the 'señoritos', although that was only in the beginning, and later on everything changed. The Alameda was something else. Outsiders always congregated there."

El Chocolate/Cantaor 2001

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-10-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm throwing stones in the street,
and if they hit someone,
forgive me. It's just that I'm going
crazy from all this thinking.

Tirando piedras por las calles
y a quien de, que lo perdone.
Tengo mi cabecita loca
de puras cavilaciones.

Bulerias/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-10-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

Your sons, Juan and Antonio Carmona, lead Ketama...

"What my sons do has nothing to do with flamenco. They play flamenco at home, not on stage. The music they perform is what they do for a living. They don't play flamenco on stage, they do a fusion of music from South America and rumba: rumba isn't flamenco either, flamenco is something different."

Juan Habichuela, Guitarrista/1999

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-10-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

How sad for the man who eats
His Bread out of another man's hand,
Always having to check the face
To see if it approves or disapproves.

Desgrasiado de aquel que vive y
come pan de mano ajena.
Siempre mirando a la cara,
si la pone mala o buena.

Martinete/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-10-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

I am still not very flexible with respect to flamenco. Lola Flores, for instance; every time she released a record, it was brought to my place so that we would know about it, and we never played it, no sir. I never considered Lola as a good cantaora or a good bailaora; she was a very temperamental and very Andalusian woman, no doubt about it, but there is a great difference between that and flamenco. Well you can imagine that if I didn't stand up with Lola, how am I going to stand up with all the bullshit that the administration of today wants to sell to us as being flamenco, you understand? I am not a very tolerant person regarding Flamenco.

Paco Lira/Owner of La Carboneria in Sevilla (long before it became just another tourist attraction)

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-10-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

I would like to die
Just to see if you would dress
In black for me.

Yo me quisiera morir
a ver si tu te ponias
negro lutito por mi.

Solea por Buleria/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-10-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

Oh! Beautiful Cuban woman,
I have a house in Havana
saved just for you,
with a ceiling of ivory
and a raised floor
for you, my little white dove,
I'm bringing you a lily.

Ay! Hermosisima Cubana,
tengo una casa en La Habana
reservada para ti
con el techo de marfil
y el piso de plataforma
para ti, blanca paloma,
llevo la flor de lis.

Guajiras/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-10-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

"How are you going to be able to talk about Spain
after you've actually been there?"

Heinrich Heine to Theophile Gauthier

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-10-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

Your mother says nothing;
Your mother is one of those
Who bites with her mouth shut.

Tu madre no dice nada;
Tu madre es de las que
Muerden con la boca cerrada.

Bulerias/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

2011-10-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

You want me to love you?
Let your mother love you,
she's obligated to!

Quieres que te quiera yo.
Que te quiera a ti tu madre,
tiene la obligacion!

Bulerias/Traditional

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