Possibly Duende

August 5th, 2008

The weekend previous I was privy to a Flamenco show in Sevilla. I have been told since about the concept of Duende, a somewhat undefined term which broadly translates as the soul of the performance. I also heard about the book titled Duende: A journey in search of Flamenco, by the author Jason Webster, which I intend to read.

I realised at the show that I wasn’t even fully aware of the format of Flamenco and after what was a magnificent evening, I thought I should give my initial interpretation. One that is without prior knowledge or much of a preconception; I do not know the adjudged calibre of the performance I saw.

I’d entered an unmarked doorway, bought a beer and found a seat amongst Spanish and foreign onlookers. There was little to see immediately, except the inside of a fair sized building with three or four rickety ceiling fans which had little effect on the stifling Sevillian city air. A low lying, small stage bore a sprinkling of mismatched chairs. Whilst waiting, I began chatting to a couple to my right; an English girl and a Bulgarian man who were travelling around Southern Spain, we drank a tequila together. The chairs on stage began to fill - A flautist, the Flamenco dancer, a man with a pony tail, and another holding a Flamenco guitar, took their places.

The dancer stood up. She was older than I would have imagined her to be, almost middle aged, slight but muscular, narrow-waisted and coarse featured. She had a thick crop of curled hair. She gave a small introduction and took her seat again. A few minutes passed. Some tapping of feet and a strum or two on the rich sounding guitar. The group seemed ready, the audience certainly were, why didn’t they begin?

Singing ensued – the man with the pony tail. Long cries, yet with connotations that indicated something complex and more dramatic to come. The woman stood again.

Rapture met torture and the two became indivisible, Moorish or Indian wails spiralled around the dancer, every one both a eulogy and an expression of eternal pain. And in movement she responded. Sweat glistened, sinews strained and skin contorted miraculously. Stamping, twisting – face etched in a dichotomy of feminine strength and fragility.

Then a slowing of strings and voice, the beats became taps once more. Only to return rapidly and in abrasive manor to crescendo again. And so it continued wave upon wave, what had seemed an eratic arrangement was actually part of a much more intricate pattern; each slowing and silence producing greater wanting for the mechanism to reach its full again. I lost track of any measured conceptualisation, as if time, the audience and the surroundings had diminished.

It was late as I walked back through the quiet Sevillian back lanes. Not knowing then, and still now, if it had been Duende.