Flamenco: Gypsy Dance and Music from Andalusia [Paperback]

Claus Schreiner (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1574670131 | ISBN-13: 978-1574670134 | Publication Date: March 1, 2003

Written by a group of dedicated flamenco enthusiasts, this book traces the history and development of flamenco, the stirring form of folk dance created by the gypsies of the Andalusian region of Spain in the 19th century and still popular today.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This well written book is an absolute must for anyone who is serious about their flamenco. -- Flamenco International Magazine, Jan-March 1998

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Amadeus Press (March 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574670131
• ISBN-13: 978-1574670134
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,636,558 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

86 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Bias, Myth and Anecdote Masquerading as Scholarship, October 3, 2000

By 

L. K. Coleman (New Orleans, LA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flamenco: Gypsy Dance and Music from Andalusia (Paperback)

By half way through this book, I formed a firm image of its origins: Claus Schreiner, the "editor," was probably chit-chatting with one or more of his fellow German flamenco aficionados when suddenly a thought struck him: "I know! Let's all write a book about flamenco!" And so they did. Why it was actually published, however, is a mystery.

As an introduction to flamenco for the novice, or even the merely curious, it is a complete failure. I can only think that someone with no real prior knowledge of flamenco would either be entirely confused or bored to tears - or both. The "essays," written by various different people, are disconnected - a result of there being no clear, collective image of either what the book was supposed to be about or the audience for whom it was to be written.

As a work written for serious aficionados or as a contribution to flamenco scholarship, it's worse than a failure because it is not only incredibly biased, but filled with errors, some of which would bring guffaws of laughter from any knowledgeable aficionado. The bias begins with the title: "Flamenco: Gypsy Dance and Music from Andalucia." The authors are quite obviously enamored of the Spanish gypsies - so much so that they ascribe the origin of flamenco almost entirely to them. For many reasons, that's completely absurd. Undeniably, the gypsies played a very important role in the development of flamenco, but they were definitely not the sole progenitors of this art form. (I say this with all due apologies to my former maestro of the guitar, Juan Maya "Marote," a "pure gypsy" from the barrio of Sacromonte, Granada.)

For a published work, it is a toss-up as to whether the quantity of the errors or their gravity is more surprising. A few examples:

- It claims that the Gypsies likely emigrated from northern India around 800 to 900 c.e., when the best scholarship places the date between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries - the time of the Mongol invasions of south Asia and the Middle East, which caused many different peoples to flee to the West.

- It talks of "Hindu dancers" appearing in Phoenician "Gadir," continuing into Roman "Gades"(misspelled in the book as "Grades" - one of numerous misspellings, perhaps due in part to the translation from German to English). Since Hinduism developed between roughly 500 b.c.e. and 400 c.e. - well after the Phoenicians and concurrent with the Romans, who had very little commerce with the Indian subcontinent - such an appearance would be highly anachronistic.

- It claims that "the dances of the Arabs, who occupied Andalusia from 711 A.D. on, had already been influenced by the gypsies who came through North Africa from India, that is to say, these dances, in all likelihood, already contained Indian elements." Ridiculous: The Gypsies of Andalucía could not have arrived there until the late Almohad period at the earliest - some five centuries after the Muslims had arrived. And the use of the word "Arab" is misleading: "Muslim" is a much more accurate term to describe both the conquerors and inhabitants of Al Andalus, since even though the lingua franca was Arabic, ethnically they were composed of Arab, Berber, Slav, and other elements. (For anyone with an interest in this history, I would highly recommend the two volume set, The Legacy of Muslim Spain, edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, where each essay is authored by a world-class scholar on his/her subject. Check out, for example, Owen Wright's essay, "Music in Islamic Spain," which debunks some of the claims about the musician Zyryab made in Flamenco.)

- It perpetuates another myth by referring to "slaves of African origin" not being "uncommon on the Iberian Peninsula" even before the conquest of Latin America. While certainly there were such slaves, the implication that black Africans were only "slaves" is to view the history of medieval Spain through the lens of the racist slave trade that developed many centuries later. There are historical references in the Arabic sources to entire regiments of black African soldiers - not slaves - appearing in the Iberian Peninsula as early as the eighth century, and repeatedly over the many succeeding centuries. Individuals of partially black African ancestry were included in the ranks of the ruling class in the Muslim periods.

- Even more astounding, even when it speaks of flamenco itself there are glaring errors: "Bulerías, for example, are to this day rarely sung, let alone danced by payos [non gypsies]." This chestnut would bring peels of laughter to anyone in Spain: There's not one professional flamenco artist, or hardly any amateur for that matter, gypsy or not, who does not perform bulerías.

- It even "dis's" the extremely fine dancer, Antonio Gades - and in the process gets it wrong again: "[Antonio Gades] thinks of himself as following in the footsteps of Antonio and Vicente Escudero, but he owes his big break to his excellent collaboration with the Spanish director Carlos Saura on the films Blood Wedding and Carmen." More incredible rubbish: Gades' "big break" - to use the author's term - came in 1964 when he co-starred in Los Tarantos with Carmen Amaya - almost twenty years before his collaboration with Saura. Gades was an icon in the dance and flamenco community when I lived in Spain in the early seventies, at which time he had already toured the world several times with his own company.

A good introduction to flamenco in the English language is still Donn E. Pohren's The Art of Flamenco, originally written almost forty years ago. While somewhat biased (as almost everything written about flamenco tends to be - that's the nature of the beast), it remains an excellent, learned, and very readable exposé of the subject by an American who has lived in Spain for almost fifty years and who has eaten, drunk and slept flamenco that entire time.

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for the flamenco aficionado.. Truly a labor of love., December 21, 1999

By 

Astrid Bennett (Los Angeles, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flamenco: Gypsy Dance and Music from Andalusia (Paperback)

This is the only book I've found in English that deals with flamenco on an in-depth, scholarly level. Fortunately, it is one that truly captivates and satisfies the demanding souls of flamenco enthusiasts. It is a work that succeeds at its attempt to cover all the aspects found at the heart of this rich art: song, guitar, as well as dance. These scholars really did their homework. They include a concise overview of the history of the gypsy people and their flourishing culture in the Southern Spanish region of Andalusia. There are some great photographs of flamenco legends (El Farruco, La Joselito, La Singla). Though they are in black and white, the photos alone make the purchase worth it. Filled with wonderful anecdotes, excellent translations of flamenco verses, and general insight into a fascinating and rich culture, this volume will is indispensible for any admirer of the Gypsies and their music.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Review of Flamenco, by Claus Schreiner, et al., May 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Flamenco: Gypsy Dance and Music from Andalusia (Paperback)

I like this book with one major misgiving: the chapter on Joselito. Though Joselito is fascinating, she gives incredibly misleading information about dancer Antonio Gades. I feel that the author of this chapter took Joselito's point of view, which is skewed, and presented it as if it were the absolute truth. As all know, Antonio Gades is a major figure in flamenco dance, and not to be taken lightly. I disagree with Joselito's comments when she says that these types of comments are "part and parcel" of flamenco; they only show Joselito's own jealousies and rivalries. Other than that, the book is fine, the pictures are wonderful, and the chapter which includes the flamenco letras is very good.