I’ve never been a big fan of dancing. For the most part when I try to dance I look like C3P-O with some sort of robotic itch. To someone as un-coordinated as I am, the perfection and annoying rigidness of ballet and other forms of choreographed dance seems simply unnatural.
Flamenco is different. Flamenco is like real life.
You see, Flamenco is a story that develops every night: no one really knows what will happen next. Every other form of dance performance is rigidly structured and exhaustively rehearsed. In Flamenco, improvisation is as important as the roles each dancer and singer is supposed to play: the star one night is the supporting actress the next day.
In Flamenco the girls are certainly beautiful. But they are not perfect. While in ballet you see these tiny women with impossibly thin figures; in Flamenco they have a bit of a belly. In ballet their skin is smooth and flawless; in Flamenco they have deep lines and tiny freckles. In ballet they leap and stand on their points; in Flamenco they stomp, they scream, they pout, they laugh, they cry.
In ballet the lead male dancer is always some ridiculously lean guy. Wearing tights. In Flamenco, there’s a fat, bald guy who claps and tells jokes. There’s the lead singer, who is certainly ugly, but you can tell he gets all the girls. There’s the good looking dancing guy, who you know the other ones make fun of because he is probably stupid.
The dancing guy is pretending to fight a bull. He is not graceful. He is measured. He is not idealized. He’s a regular guy. His hair line is receding at the temples. His pants are worn, his boots are a bit past their prime. He has no sock stuffed down his crotch. He relates back to the audience. You want to be more like him, and he wants to be sitting in your chair drinking your wine. He sweats. A lot.
Yes. I like Flamenco.
