#andalucia
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Disciplining the cante: From café cantante to Tablao
The performance spaces of flamenco have always been deeply intertwined with the material realities of Spanish politics and capital. The transition from the late nineteenth-century café cantante to the mid-twentieth-century tablao represents a deliberate restructuring of cultural production. By examining the political economy of the tablao, we uncover the mechanisms through which the regime of General Francisco Franco instrumentalised an…
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The Sacred and the Sonic: San Antonio de Padua and Flamenco Architecture in Cádiz
The annual celebration of San Antonio de Padua within the province of Cádiz forces an intense consolidation of liturgical veneration and vernacular performance. Whilst historically anchored in church liturgy and the seasonal rhythms of livestock trading, the modern iteration of this festival serves as an arena where regional identity is actively negotiated through highly specialised…
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The Flamenco Afición in the Golden Age: Understanding Audiences in the Cafés Cantantes
The afición, the dedicated, deeply knowledgeable community of devotees and expert amateurs whose collective passion and rigorous standards sustain the art form, was the driving force behind the reinvention of flamenco during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
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The Modernist Invention of Tradition: Re-evaluating the 1922 Concurso de Cante Jondo
A persistent characteristic of the historiography of flamenco’s Golden Age (c. 1870–1930) is the tendency to impose a narrative of decline and rescue. The most prominent casualty of this approach is the Concurso de Cante Jondo, held in Granada during the festival of Corpus Christi on 13 and 14 June 1922. Standard historical accounts frame…
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The golden triangle and the geometry of exclusion
The concept of the golden triangle in flamenco is used to define a geographical space traditionally regarded as the cradle of the art form. While often celebrated as a map of cultural heritage, it functions more accurately as an inflexible geometry of exclusion. By drawing these lines, the flamenco establishment creates a sense of “lo nuestro” (that which is…