a flamenco fiesta

The Gothic Quarter of Barcelona

I've traveled all across Europe on a budget, and even when I travel now, I'm still highly budget minded. With every restaurant outing, museum, train ticket or whatever, I'm constantly thinking, "Do we need that? Is there another way? Is this particular experience worth forgoing a future one?" But now that I have a bit of expendable income, I feel it's good to pamper myself now and then, because really, every experience you get while traveling is a unique, one-of-a-kind one thing; one where you'll likely never be in the same position to do that activity again. Regarding Barcelona - it's a great city, but I'm probably never going to visit again without an explicit reason; I've seen it now, and now there's so much more remaining in the world. I'm of course, quite understanding the fact that I will never see the entire world, just as I will never be able to experience the entirety of any city that I visit. American domestic beer is fine if that's all you've got, and our poor bodies on this Earth are but Coors factories of utilization. We pump out a lot, but rarely do we have those gems of a microbrew, but those gems are the moments to hold on to, to let glitter and catch the sun, to split the light in a thousand fragments and bask in their beauty.

While we were traveling through Morocco, I decided to surprise the wife with one of those pampering moments, one that she had long dreamed of, away from my budgeteering mentality: watching a flamenco show. I did a quick search online, looked at all the reviews, and finally decided on Tablao Cordobes at 50 euro a person. It was perhaps one of the most traditionally touristic things I've ever booked - I’ve been traditionally the couchsurfing backpacker type, after all. The advertisements ran as though their target market were the stereotypical ugly Americans who are completely incognizant of the local culture. Even more humorous was the way the "flamenco cave" flaunted being a hub for world famous gypsy dancers such as various people I've never heard of before. I might as well open a bar and tell people it was once the home of the world famous accordionist, the Underground Man. No one probably actually knows who that was, especially those staying in the city just for a weekend. It turns out though that the tablao is actually a hub for famous dancers, so that joke's on me.

Why my weirdness about it? Flamenco doesn't originally come from Barcelona, but rather it comes from the gypsy caves of Andalusia in southern Spain, more towards Seville than Barcelona. It evolved around the 1800s from the gitano - Spanish gypsy - culture, involving snapping, clapping, guitar playing, singing-storytelling and dancing. When traveling through Arabia and Eastern Europe, I've even noticed some surprising similarities between the three in their traditional music, with the one linking factor: the Romani - ie gypsy - people having been dispersed heavily through those regions, spreading from India to Ukraine and Russia, across North Africa and to Spain and France. And of course, North African and Spanish culture are forever mingled together after the long Moorish occupation of the Iberian peninsula. Flamenco is the Romani's biggest contribution to Spanish culture and perhaps to world culture, as now flamenco has been declared by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritege of World Humanity. Quite a title.

Flamenco graduated out of the caves and into performance cafes, or cantatas, sometime in the early 1800s, and then finally to more formal "tablaos" in the 1960s, adopted from the private shows of wealthy winemakers that were hosted at their vineyards. The first tablaos emerged in Madrid, Seville and Barcelona and some can still be visited. In Barcelona, the Tarantos Flamenco show opened in 1963 and Tablao Cordobes, where I went, opened its doors in the 1970s under a structure more favorable and enjoyable to the dancers - the audiences aren't to talk, eat, make noise or in any other way distract the dancers, even photography and video taping isn't allowed until the last five minutes, when acknowledging the fact that you want a keepsake of your experience, they let you have at it. Also on my list was Flamenco y Opera, which actually sounded the most interesting if not the least authentic, a show combining the highlights of both artistic styles in a somewhat unusual sounding mixture.

The Tablao Cordobes is located on Las Ramblas and you have to be quite precise in the time that you arrive. They are running a real flamenco factory in there, with shows and dinners quite perfectly lined up - one dinner goes on while one show is running, then the show let's out and the people in the dinner are let in and repeat. Or you can go the cheaper mode and just do the show, but then you don't get as nice a seat. We opted for the dinner and for the last show, which rumor had it was the best, as the dancers would get tired of doing the regular routines and would start to do even more improvisation and experimentation - which is what flamenco is all about. I don't know how true all that is, but it's a good catch from their website and the show I attended was enthralling and at least convincing in that manner.

The dinner was a huge buffet of Spanish food, with a bit of representation of cuisine from all across the land. I was on a paella kick, and had been suckered into a tourist trap sidewalk cafe earlier, so was desperate for some decent paella. Here's where I helped myself to three or four servings, and then a few more plates of flan. And some fish. And some whatever that was. All delicious. And this all-you-can-eat buffet magic was accompanied by all-you-can-drink wine. I was like 12 year old girl at a Justin Bieber concert, my head was about to explode from all the excitement, and I was about to immediately tweet my undying affection towards all things del marisco. But all during this food chant that was going on through my head, I had to keep interrupting myself with - "I'm going to be sitting in there for two hours without the option of a bathroom, but there won't be unlimited wine in there - what do I do?" It was a kind of first world torture, a torment that I hadn't experienced since some of the worse outhouses during my tenure in the Peace Corps, but of an altogether different nature. This was far worse though, because it was a self-induced torture, rather than the must-face-the-facts-of-your-situation torture. But somehow I made it through the night without having to run for a break.

And that was a gloriously good thing. We were ushered into the performance hall, which despite being on the second floor of a mid-rise was still decorated as a cave in order to get you in the bona fide flamenco feeling. The chairs were tight, too many to put a fire marshal at ease, but enough to crowd people in so that excitement would be easily contagious while you're still comfortably seated, eye level with the clog heeled tap dancing, feet moving so fast they could power all of Barcelona with their energy.

Having opted for the dinner, we were treated to the seats right front and center, so we could see the flaring nostrils of the passionate dancers, catching the wind of their twirls, taking in their seafood inspired aromas, and catching the sweat peel off the tips of their fingers as they wiped away their brows. Also included was a glass of champagne, so be sure said sweat doesn't plop right in. The passion did ripple through the air as the audience clung on to every stomp, sway and fake fall; the British, Americans and Russians who made up most of the audience all playing along with the illusion of being in a cave. But it wasn't a truly authentic experience, looking at those people surrounding me, knowing all of them would be too mild to accept the real opportunity to cram into a cave full of gypsies, knowing that maybe even the adventure in me is maturing and getting older and perhaps, also becoming milder as well. The older you get, the more concerned you become about safety you are, rather than life. Perhaps it's that death is always closer - but the paradox is that by forgoing life experiences, we're only robbing death of it's meaning, and what's worse than a meaningless death?