Flaminco A Go Go and Single Sam

Feb 6, 2011


Puerto Escondido, Oax. Mexico


Night before last I took a fellow renter-gringo-friend from the ´orphanage´ ( abandoned as we are by the owners, management and maintenance crew of the hotel) amateur muscian and uniniciated Flaminco-fan to enjoy a traditional Flaminco performance of ´Toque´guitar and dance- pool and beachside at a private hotel in the Bococho area of Puerto. Art is not an objective experience, as Sam clearly illustrated, but subjective: an infusion and projection of our sensibilities, current emotional state, and lives into a performance, and interpretted accordingly.


The attractive, dramatic, flaminco-ruffled and ´searing-´female made quite an impression on Sam, a plumb, middle-aged, insurance salesman from northern Minnesota. He plays guitar and drums as a hobby, so he is not without musical exposure, just ´Flaminco´ exposure. And in his defense, it has been a La Nina winter of excess cold and snow in the north. Perhaps ´art apppreciation´ had been put on ice as well.

I briefly sketched in a quick art-bio of Flamenco: five-hundred year old art form from southern Spain that has Gypsy, Moorish, Byzantine, and Sephartic-Jewish roots. ( a raised eyebrow by him.) The local expat lady and radio-celeb ( she has had her own show here for years) introduced the Argentinian pair, and the ´husband´ , a thin, hawk-nosed, very ´sephartic´looking man, came out carrying his acoustic guitar, thanked her and the audience, sat down, and proceeded to attack the guitar, the fingers of his right hand feverishly plucking, stumming, tapping and pounding the strings, the fingers of his left hand racing up and down the frets. Sam´s jaw dropped, he shook his head and muttered,

´´Wow!!´ Yes, classical Spanish Sevillan guitar on a Hendrix-Steve Vai-Jimmy Page level of finese and acuity! Sam smiled broadly, appreciating the guitar work.

She entered from behind a white screen, stage right, slowly and dramaticly with arms raised and head turned, and ascended the three steps to the stage, stomping her black Flaminco pumps to what seemed (to me) a syncopated rythum ( later to find out a twelve-beat meter). This clearly was not a standard rock ´one -two, one two beat´ or a waltz ´one-two three, one-two three´. If not ´mystery´, she was certainly ´intensity´personified.

``Why does she look so angry?`` John asks under his breath to me, after the first number.

`Angry???`, I think to myself. Dark masquera and dress, downcast eyes, then explosive foot and heel stomping, arms fluidly raised hands and fingers arabesquing, a sudden pirrouette, then a haughty pose and focus. `Sam needs some `go-go` moves to make this familiar and culturally palettable.`

´´ Sam, I think it is supposed to read intense, not angry. Intense and mysterious. ´´

More Gypsy Sevillian rythmic stomping, clapping, pirouettes and posing. He strummed, picked, tapped and sang, a times sounding almost like an `Adhan`- a Moorish prayer call.
``Guapa Gitana... Ahhhyhajhhha`` ( Beautiful gypsy). Then a costume change: a tight, form-fitting white ensemble with contrasting black polka-dots, ruffles below the knees.

Sam bent towards me and whispered,

``Man, does she look high maintenance!``. Who knows, maybe she does have and operetic, ´contralto-bien-contrario-temperment´. Poor, recently divorced Single Sam, could´t get past his current mistrust of women to appreciate the Flamenco art form. He had imbued, what UNESCO has declared a ´Masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage of humanity ´with the angst and bickering of a marriage gone sour. (He made the foolish error of taking his most recent wife on a trip to a foreign land AFTER they married- and not before. Even a three day trip would have taught him all her assets and limitations, and he could have avoided a bad marriage. And this, his second marriage. I think it is going to be a long learning curve for Single Sam!)
``Damn, would`t want to travel with HER!`` shaking his head in the direction of the flashing streamers of polka-dots.
´ Divorce Court´ goes to court, is courted by complex Andalusian´cante-jondo´art form, only to be tossed aside like an over-cooked drum-stick. Art form rejected.

´No prob´. There´s always a beach dog, a Spanish Mastif or Pointer around to snatch up the drum-stick, and the hotel buffet looked tasty.

Abrazos

Esteban