What you are about to watch
Flamenco for first-timers
Cante, toque and baile, the twelve-beat compás and the palos explained in plain words, so a 40-minute show makes more sense while it is happening.
Reserve your Los Tarantos night ↗Three arts, not one
UNESCO describes flamenco as the fusion of cante (song), baile (dance) and toque (guitar playing). The singer, usually seated, delivers short, simple lyrics that carry a range of feeling, from grief to joy. The dance can express anything from sadness to joy, and the guitar has long gone beyond simply accompanying. In a show, you are watching all three arts at once, and each of them can lead. UNESCO adds that the singing is usually done without backing singers, so the voice stands alone.
The compás is the frame
Compás is the rhythmic cycle of a flamenco piece. It is more precise than most Western rhythm, and the three basic kinds are binary, ternary and a twelve-beat cycle that belongs to flamenco alone. Guitarists mark it by strumming and tapping, and when there is no guitarist, hand-claps called palmas keep it going. If you find yourself tapping along, count in twelves, and you will start to hear where the accents fall. Wikipedia counts a flamenco mode, the compás and a flamenco performer as the three things that make a piece flamenco, and adds a harder-to-define quality it calls flamencura.
What a palo is
A palo is a flamenco style, and there are more than fifty. Traditionally they are grouped by weight: cante jondo, the most serious, cante chico, the lighter forms, and an intermediate group for those that fit neither. Palos range from the sober seguiriya to the fast, upbeat bulerías. You do not need to name them. It is enough to notice how the mood and the speed change from piece to piece. Wikipedia lists the best-known ones as bulerías, fandangos, seguiriyas, soleares, tangos and tarantos, among others.
The guitar's role
In a typical piece the guitarist opens with a short introduction that sets the key, the compás and the tempo. Between verses, the guitar plays falsetas, short instrumental interludes. Techniques such as rasgueado, picado and tremolo shape the rhythm, answer the singer and cue the dancer. Watch the guitarist as well as the dancer: many of the changes in a piece start with a signal from the strings.
The dance
UNESCO notes that the technique is complex and differs by gender: men's footwork is heavier, women's movement gentler and more sensual. Footwork, called zapateado, is a required passage in some dances, and bulerías are often danced with vigorous foot-tapping. Dancers also respond to the singer and the guitar as they go, which is part of why two nights are never quite the same, even with the same artists on the stage.
Where flamenco comes from
Flamenco developed within the Romani, or gitano, subculture of Andalusia, with a presence also in Murcia and Extremadura. It likely emerged in the late eighteenth century in Baja Andalusia, and the oldest written record dates from 1774. UNESCO says the Gitano community played an essential role in its development, and that it passes down through dynasties, families, social groups and flamenco clubs. It is performed at festivals, rituals and private celebrations, as well as on stage.
Barcelona's own thread
Flamenco came from Andalusia, but Barcelona has its own history with it. Catalan rumba grew out of Andalusian flamenco rumba in the city's Romani neighbourhoods, among them Gràcia and the Raval, in the 1950s and 1960s. Peret is one of its early names. It is a sound from Barcelona, and part of the same family as the music on a tablao stage, which is why a night at Los Tarantos sits comfortably in the city's story.
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