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Al-Ahram Weekly 8 - 14 April 1999 Issue No. 424 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 8 - 14 April 1999 Issue No. 424
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Blood, death and the colour black
ONCE, at the Alhambra Theatre, London, as the mighty Flamenco dancer Argentina thundered onto the stage, a thin voice called out from the audience and echoed around the auditorium: "Oh what beautiful feet you've got, Grandma."
At the time, and like so many other greats of Flamenco, Argentina was no spring chicken. Instead, she was possessed of that gleam only years grant to a performer, and then only to the greatest.
Flamenco is a word for excitement. It is incendiary, flame-nosed; it has its ghosts and they haunt the poetry of the western world though its roots are eastern. With Flamenco you see the voice and hear the shape of the feet because it is the feet that carry the drama and there are no barriers. Percussive, they beat out the primal passions of life and like a metronome, stamp stamp stamp, there can be no problems.
Flamenco is not a dance, it is a philosophy of the soul, exposing death, departure and loss. Yet it remains, throughout, neither sad nor depressive. The dancers, odd, terrifying creatures, are rigged out in players' rags: the men, dark, silent, are irredeemably caught in the insolent flounce and billow of the curling, aggressively beautiful women. And together they suggest life, intimating the spiritual emanations of a continuing hell. Death's black trains are coming, and everyone jumps and shouts for joy.
The colour black is the red of Spain. It stands for strength and fortitude, for Goya, whose aristocratic sitters donned the gypsy mantilla in a grotesque parody of fashion, for Velasquez and Picasso. And red is the odour of the bullring, the scent of death.
Some things have no end, and Flamenco is one of them. Cairo remembers Christina Hoyos with love and awe and now eagerly awaits Noche Flamenca. Tonight and tomorrow, Cairo Opera House -- there is nowhere else to be. (For details see Listings)
