Selected Cronicas

SPAIN

It could scarcely be called singing, in so far as singing means using one’s voice musically. It was scarcely vocal, in so far as the voice tends to utter words. Flamenco singing precedes utterance, it is human breathing. Sometimes, the odd word escaped, revealing how that mute singing was achieved. It was all about life, love and death. Those three unspoken words were interrupted by laments and modulations. Modulations of breath, that initial vocal phase which captures the suffering in that opening lament and also the joy in that first outcry of sorrow. And pain. And then another piercing cry, this time of happiness at the outburst of that sorrow. The audience sit huddled round the dancers, looking swarthy and unwashed. After a lengthy modulation which dies away with a sigh, the audience, sounding as exhausted as the singer, murmurs an olé, an amen, a dying ember.

But there is also that impatient song which the voice alone does not express: then the nervous, insistent tapping of feet intervenes, the olé which continually interrupts the song is no longer a response; it is incitement, it is the black bull. The singer, almost clenching his teeth, gives voice to the fanaticism of his race, but the audience demands more and more, until that final spasm is achieved: this is Spain.

I could also hear the song that was absent. It consists of silence interrupted by cries from the audience. Within that circle of silence, a short, gaunt, swarthy little man, with inner fire, hands on hips and head thrown back, hammers out the incessant rhythm of that absent song with the heels of his shoes. This is not music. Not even dance. Zapateado* predates the choreography of dancing — it is the body manifesting itself and manifesting us, feet communicating to a pitch of fury in a language which Spain understands.

The audience intensifies its wrath within its very silence. From time to time, you could hear the hoarse taunts of a gypsy, all charcoal and red tatters, in whom hunger has turned to passion and cruelty. It was not a spectacle, for there were no spectators: everyone present played as important a role as the dancer who was tapping his feet in silence. Becoming more and more exhausted, they can communicate for hours through this language which, were it ever to have possessed words, must have gradually lost them throughout the centuries — until the oral tradition came to be transmitted from father to son like the impetus of blood.

I watched two flamenco dancers partner each other. I have never witnessed any other dance in which the rivalry between a man and a woman becomes so naked. The conflict between them is so open that their wiles are of no importance: at certain moments the woman becomes almost masculine, and the man looks at her in amazement. If the Moor on Spanish soil is Moorish, his female counterpart has lost any languor she ever possessed when confronted with Basque severity. The Moorish woman in Spain is as proud as a peacock until love transforms her into a maja.*

Conquest is arduous in flamenco dancing. While the male dancer speaks with insistent feet, his partner pursues the aura of her own body with her hands outspread like two fans: in this way she magnetizes herself, and prepares to become tangible and at the same time intangible. But just when you least expect it, she puts forward one foot and taps out three beats with her heel. The male dancer shudders before this crude gesture, he recoils and freezes. There is the silence of dance. Little by little, the man raises his arms once more, and cautiously — out of fear rather than modesty — attempts with splayed hands to shadow his partner’s proud head. He circles her several times and at certain moments almost turns his back to her, thus exposing himself to the danger of being stabbed. And if he has avoided being stabbed, he owes his escape to his partner’s unexpected recognition of his bravado: this then is her man. She stamps her feet, her head held high, with the first cry of love: at last she has found her companion and enemy. The two withdraw bristling with pride. They have acknowledged each other. They are in love.

The dance itself now begins. The man is dark-skinned, lithe and defiant. She is severe and dangerous. Her hair has been drawn back, she is proud of her severity. This dance is so vital that it is hard to believe life will continue once the dance has ended: this man and woman must die. Other dances express nostalgia for their courage. But this dance is courage. Other dances are joyful. But the joy of this dance is solemn. Or missing. What matters here is the mortal triumph of living. The two dancers neither smile nor forgive. But do they understand each other? They have never thought of understanding each other. They have each brought themselves as their banner. And whoever is vanquished — in this dance both are vanquished — will not weaken in submission. Those Spanish eyes will remain dry with love and wrath. Whoever is vanquished — and both of them will be vanquished — will serve wine to the other like a slave. Even though that wine may prove fatal once jealous passion finally explodes. The partner who survives will feel revenged. But condemned to eternal solitude. For this woman alone was his enemy, this man alone was her enemy, and they chose each other for the dance.