Dances
Flamenco in its strictest sense, is a professionalized art-form based on the various folkloric music traditions of Southern Spain in autonomous community of Andalusia, Extremadura and Murcia. In a wider sense, it refers to these musical traditions and more modern musical styles which have themselves been deeply influenced by and become blurred with the development of flamenco over the past two centuries. It includes cante(singing), toque(guitar playing), baile (dance), jaleo (vocalizations), palmas (handclapping) and pitos (finger snapping).
The oldest record of flamenco dates to 1774 in the book Las Cartas Marruecas by José Cadalso. The genre originated in themusic and dance styles of Andalusia, of much older origin. Flamenco has been influenced by and become associated with the Romani people in Spain, however, unlike Romani music in Eastern Europe, its origin and style is uniquely Andalusian.
In recent years, flamenco has become popular all over the world and is taught in many non-Hispanic countries, especially the United States and Japan. In Japan, there are more flamenco academies than there are in Spain. On November 16, 2010, UNESCO declared flamenco one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
Palos are flamenco styles, classified by criteria such as rhythmic pattern, mode,chord progression, stanzaic form and geographic origin. There are over 50 different palos, some are sung unaccompanied while others have guitar or other accompaniment. Some forms are danced while others are not. Some are reserved for men and others for women while some may be performed by either, though these traditional distinctions are breaking down: the Farruca, for example, once a male dance, is now commonly performed by women too.
There are many ways to categorize Palos but they traditionally fall into three classes: the most serious is known as cante jondo(or cante grande), while lighter, frivolous forms are called cante chico. Forms that do not fit either category are classed as cante intermedio.Cante jondo has clear traces of Arabic and Spanish folk melodies, as well as vestiges of Byzantine, Christian and Jewish religious music.
These are the most known palos:
- Alegrías
- Bulerías
- Bulerías por soleá (soleá por bulerías)
- Caracoles
- Cartageneras
- Fandango
- Fandango de Huelva
- Fandango Malagueño
- Granaínas
- Malagueñas
- Mineras
- Peteneras
- Rondeñas
- Rumba
- Saeta
- Seguiriyas
- Sevillanas
- Tangos
- Tanguillos
- Tarantos
- Tientos
Maria Jose Muñoz B21AE y Nerea Tomé