Flamenco in Valencia: the roots

Where flamenco comes from

UNESCO's entry for flamenco names three strands, song, dance and guitar, and says many communities treat the art as a mark of who they are. It credits the Gitano, or Roma, community with a central part in shaping it. The heartland it gives is Andalusia, with older links to Murcia and Extremadura, and it adds that flamenco turns up at festivals, rituals and private gatherings. Wikipedia dates the earliest written trace to the end of the eighteenth century in Baja Andalusia and names Jerez de la Frontera as the first place it was recorded.

From café cantante to tablao

Flamenco was not always a ticketed hour. Wikipedia says the cafés cantantes, night bars that served flamenco with drinks, were at their height from the middle of the nineteenth century into the second decade of the twentieth. From 1920 to 1955 shows moved into bullrings and theatres under the label flamenco opera. The tablaos that replaced the cafés grew up across Spain through the 1960s. The word comes from tablado, a floorboard, and names both the stage and the venue, and many tablaos serve drinks, tapas or full meals. A café with a stage and a bar belongs to that line. Each step changed the room but kept the stage, the drink and the audience close at hand.

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How the art travelled

Wikipedia's article on the tablao says flamenco spread to other regions as the café format changed and new styles developed, and its main article notes a historical presence in Murcia and Extremadura beyond Andalusia. It also records flamenco teaching and festivals as far afield as New Mexico and Rotterdam. The art that reached a Valencia room in the late twentieth century had already travelled a long way.

The Levante connection

Valencia faces the Mediterranean, and the nearest flamenco tradition to it is the eastern one. Wikipedia describes fandangos orientales, the eastern fandangos, as originating in eastern Andalusia and Murcia, and lists cartageneras, the murciana and the levantica among the related free songs. That does not make Valencia a flamenco heartland, and nothing sold with the ticket promises these songs. It does mean the art has a longer eastern history than the map suggests.

A pioneer in a new city

The venue says it was founded in 1998 and presents itself as the pioneer in this region in showing flamenco permanently. Its own site gives two aims: to show the force of the art to people who did not know it, and to give the fans in Valencia a place to share it, since until then they had none. It also points out that flamenco was declared World Heritage by UNESCO in 2010. Those dates are the venue's, and its own pages are the best source for them.

Why it still works in a small room

UNESCO names dynasties, families, social groups and flamenco clubs as the channels that pass the art on, so small rooms have always carried it. A close room shows what a big theatre flattens: the guitarist's hands, the singer's face, the dancer's footwork. The tablao format keeps that closeness, and it is what a first-time visitor comes for. A close room is not a compromise, then. It is the setting the art grew up in.

Who this isn't for

Seeing flamenco in its Andalusian heartland takes a trip south, and this show will not replace it. A night in Valencia shows the art as it is performed away from home, in a room with its own history. Visitors who plan to be in Seville, Granada or Jerez may prefer to save their first flamenco night for there. A Valencia night is a good first taste of the art, and a poor substitute for the regions where it grew up.