Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Dance
Flamenco
For those who think that the passion of flamenco is the preserve of the south, think again.
The
gitanos
(Roma people) get around, and some of the big names of the genre come from
Catalonia. They were already in Catalonia long before the massive migrations from the
south of the 1960s, but with these waves came an exponential growth in flamenco bars as
Andalucians sought to recreate a little bit of home.
First and foremost, one of the greatest
bailaoras
(flamenco dancers) of all time, Carmen
Amaya (1913-63) was born in what is now Port Olímpic. She danced to her father's guitar
in the streets and bars around La Rambla in pre-civil war years. Much to the bemusement of
purists from the south, not a few flamenco stars today have at least trained in flamenco
schools in Barcelona - dancers Antonio Canales and Joaquín Cortés are among them. Other
Catalan stars of flamenco include
cantaores
(singers) Juan Cortés Duquende and Miguel
Poveda, a boy from Badalona. He took an original step in 2005 by releasing a flamenco al-
bum,
Desglaç,
in Catalan. Another interesting flamenco voice in Catalonia is Ginesa Ortega
Cortés, actually born in France. She masters traditional genres ably but loves to experiment.
In her 2002 album,
Por los espejos del agua
(Through the Water's Mirrors), she does a reg-
gae version of flamenco and she has sung flamenco versions of songs by Joan Manuel Serrat
and Billie Holiday.
An exciting combo formed in Barcelona in 1996: the seven-man, one-woman group Ojos
de Brujo (Wizard's Eyes), which melded flamenco and rumba with rap, ragga and electronic
music. Unfortunately, the band split up in 2013, with lead singer Marina setting off to pur-
sue a solo career as 'Marinah'.
Born in Catalonia, Pau Casals (1876-1973) was one of the greatest cellists of the 20th
century. Living in exile in southern France, he declared he would not play in public as long
as the Western democracies continued to tolerate Franco's regime. In 1958 he was a can-
didate for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Sardana
The Catalan dance
par excellence
is the
sardana,
whose roots lie in the far northern Em-
pordà region of Catalonia. Compared with flamenco, it is sober indeed but not unlike a lot
of other Mediterranean folk dances.
