There are some rivers you should cruise on, and others you shouldn’t. The Guadalquivir probably falls more into the latter category than the former (it also runs through Cordoba). It was lovely, but there is much more to see in Seville from the land side of its riverbanks, than from the river itself. There are lovely trees lining much of the river, and so it blocked the view to many buildings. The bonus though was that it was nice and cool on the river, and after days of mid-40s, the cool was a welcome change. There are lots of bridges across the Guadalquivir, most of them built for Expo ’92. The Puente del Alamillo we had seen from a distance and didn’t realize it was a bridge, so it was good to get closer to it and find out what it was.
We were booked in to see a Flamenco show that night and so after a little walk around, we headed back to the motel to freshen up. We arrived about 40 minutes early so that we could have our tapas dinner and a few drinks. We were ushered to a table that sat right next to the front of the stage, and so we weren’t sure if it was a good seat or not! Good was that we were only inches away from the dancers feet, bad in that we couldn’t really get the overall ‘look’ of the dance as we were so very close. If I had my choice again though, I would choose where we were as it was just amazing watching their feet from so close up.
Tapas was nice, the place filled up, and soon enough the lights went down and the show began. There were four Spanish guitarists whose fingers flew over their guitar necks. They came and sat down on the chairs lined up against the back of the stage, all in black pants and white shirts. Next came three singers, two male and one female. The guitarists started, and so did the singers. We have absolutely no idea what they were singing about, but they were very passionate about it, whatever it was. Then we were treated to a variety of Flamenco dancers and styles, with a couple of solo songs thrown in amongst it all. The dancers ranged in age and build, with the younger girls going first, finishing up with the older ladies, and a young male dancer in between. They each had their own style and they were quite different from one other. Passionate is the word to describe every one of them. It would have been nice to have a little something about what they were dancing and singing about, it was hard to tell if they were happy, or sad, or angry, or in love, or broken hearted – but each song, and each dance was full of fire, energy, total concentration and passion. The lady at the end, the older one, came out in a traditional dress that had the long frilly train and played castanets while she danced. I couldn’t get over how fast she would click the castanets, they sounded like twangy machine gun fire, and really added to the dance.
They danced with such intent and such passion – passion is the word that I’ll keep returning to as it is the word that describes it all best. They all seemed as if the audience did not exist to them, they were dancing for their own reasons. Every part of them was intense, from the way they held their hands to the looks on their faces.
The singing was different – you could hear a lot of the Moorish influences, and there was a lot of long drawn out notes that I am sure was just one word that was being sung for 60 seconds. One lady came out in between and sang her heart out, for about five minutes on the one song. Again, no idea what she was singing about. We tried to gauge it from her facial expressions and body language, but she’d look really cranky one moment, and then look down at the ground and almost giggle the next, so maybe she was singing about a man who done her wrong, who she hit with a fry pan while he was asleep.
It was a fabulous show and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. Can’t go to Spain without seeing a little Flamenco hey? We wandered back over the Triana bridge and the moon was out. There was a nice cool breeze, and it was only 33 degrees (at 10pm) so it was a good time to be out walking off dinner. Sadly, no photos of the Flamenco, but lots of other ones for you to look at anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment