A night of Fantastic Flamenco!

Hola! Or as they say in Morroccan Arabic... Salam Alekoum! Once again back to blogger, after being computerless for the last 3 days! But you all know what that means.. more for you to read! That´s good, right!?

Yes. Yes it is! :)

So let´s rewind the clock, and go back to Thursday evening.

Thursday evening was magical to say the least. Our last Abroadco trip of the last week, to visit one of the most famous and well-known associations of Spain.. we went to see Flamenco. And it was incredible.

9:30 PM at night- we shuffled out from dinner, the night sky dim against the city`s lights, as we walked to Correos to meet with Inma. (I personally enjoy going out at night and in the morning in Granada- the afternoons here can get pretty hot, so its always nice to walk out in cooler parts of the day. )

We walked up to see Scott already there, and Inma a few minutes behind him. We all greeted Inma in Spanish, and we then turned and immediately made our way north. We were headed to the Sacromonte, which me and Scott had been exploring about two weeks ago, and a week ago in the discoteca. As the way was long, we quickly caught a small bus to travel most of the way there. It was pretty crowded, but we managed to squeeze in!

Finally, the bus dropped us off at a corner, and we walked two streets down to finally reach our destination point. We definately weren`t the only group to think of Flamenco on Thursday, because the place was definately packed!

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We already had tickets, so we weren`t worried, but I was definately wondering if everyone else did too!

After a little bit of waiting, (apparently there was some confusion on the establisment`s part of whether we had tickets or not) we hurried into a long, underground cave room that is very traditional of homes in the Sacromonte, to watch the evening`s show. On our right sat a guitar player, a drum player and a singer, and several flamenco dancers. With a suddenly rap of the drum, and a loud vocalization from the singer, the dancers rose to their feet.

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They immediately went to the center of the room, and proceeded to begin. Their dance was definately of a different sort when it comes to dancing- they always keep in time to the song, their feet stamping along with the rhythm, which is usually a fast pace on the feet. But their midsection up to the arms remains a slow movement, so it is easy to see why it has been called the most difficult dance in all of the world! After the group of flamenco dancers danced, they then split up into individual turns. I took video of one of the dancers, as you can glimpse into what it really was like that night:

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(more pictures on my photobucket, as always!)

Each of the dancers had their own dance, their own song, their own rhythm. We watched in awe at their hypnotic movements and impossible looking feet patterns. Most of the dancers were women, however two men danced as well, one of them doing a ´relationship´dance with one of the women flamenco dancers. We were served delicious sangria drinks halfway through the show, and the night seemed to become timeless as we watched this old gypsy tradition.

When we reached the end of the night, one of the flamenco dancers came up and started picking tourists from the crowd. She picked several different people, and each one of them tried to mimick in earnest. After she had picked a young man from the opposite side of the room, she walked over, and with Inma`s eager pointing, motioned to Stephanie to follow her. Me and Scott eagerly cheered, and Stephanie rose to the occasion.. and she did very well, using her dress in the same fashion as the Flamenco dancer.

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Then the night truly ended with a final dance, and we were soon back on the road walking home. We all began discussing what our new Spain careers were, (mine is going to be a female matador, Scott is going to be a Spanish DJ, and Stephanie our newest Flamenco dancer) We all had a lot of fun, and it definately was reflected in the happy chatter in the cool night air. We soon bid Inma farewell, giving two kisses on each cheek as is custom in Spain, and she bid us farewell, and to take care in our next adventure... MOROCCCO!


(as the Morocco entry is very long, I am going to post it in another entry! Go up and read it, for sure! )