I went for a Spanish Cultural Evening recently in Mumbai and the highlight of the party and what I was really looking forward to was Flamenco performance by internationally renowned flamenco dancer Carmen Cortes and her husband who is considered the best flamenco guitar players Gerardo Nunez. I had seen it on TV but never experienced the real thing.
What is Flamenco?

Flamenco is a vigorous rhythmic dance style; also music or song suitable to accompany a flamenco dance. The dance, which is passionate and seductive at the same time, involves a lot of hand movement and footwork which is quite intricate. Flamenco exists in three forms: el cante, the song, el baile, the dance, and la guitarra, the guitar playing. An interesting fact - Gypsies are believed to have invented Flamenco and Gypsies actually have their origins in India. So a Spanish musical genre with a touch of India!Apart from that, Andalusia was the breeding ground for the continued development and mixing of Spanish folk music and for the Flamenco song. Read the history of Flamenco A combination of colourful polka-dot dresses, castanets, mellow tones of the acoustic guitar and rhythmic clapping, made the performance very fascinating and foot-tapping.
I have taken few videos of Flamenco performance - Carmen (Flamenco dancer) and Gerardo (Flamenco guitar player) complement each other very well. I loved the way she gyrated and moved her body so gracefully.



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Gerardo Nunez