The Art of Flamenco Guitar Paris Pliakas - The Art of Flamenco Guitar- joomag | Page 37

FLAMENCO,ANDALUCIA AND THE GYPSIES
FLAMENCO:
music closely related to guitar, singing, dancing, the «palmas» [that is the
handclapping] beating its time and the castanets. Nowadays it is considered to be the most typical
Spanish element the world over.There is not even one place in the world that FLAMENCO art is not
known and respected. This happens because in the creation of FLAMENCO contributed all the
traditions that flourished or were transported to Andalucia between the 8 th to 15 th century maintaining
their Hellenic , Indian, Egyptian, Jewish and Moorish roots.
ANDALUCIA is the souther region of Spain and it is divided to the following provinces:
SEVILLA, CADIZ, CORDOBA, MALAGA, GRANADA, HUELVA, JAEN, and ALMERIA.
If all these elements were not gathered in Andalucia may be FLAMENCO would not exist today. This
could happen also, if the gypsies would not arrive in Andalucia during that period. Their possible
origin is India because the gypsies language -romani- is very similar to the Indian one -sanscrit-.
GYPSIES left India at the beginning of the 9 th century. After settling in Greece for some centuries
they were distributed to Balkanic peninsula, Russia, Austria, Hungary, Netherlands and on 1452 they
reached the Iberian peninsula. Spanish people thought that they were from Egypt and they called
them Egyptians, in Spanish «Egiptanos» which was paraphrased to «Gitanos» which means Gypsies.
By that time they lived in Spain under poor conditions and great deprivation.
At the end of the 15 th century an edict against all nomad tribes, gypsies included, obliged them to
leave the country within 60 days.It was that time that many gypsies took shelter to Andalucia where
they mainly dealt with agriculture being protected by the nobles of the region.
Gypsies’ expulsions were continued until 1759. During the expulsions there was a misunderstanding
about the name “gypsies” so they adapted the nickname “FLAMENCO” which is a word of Arabic
derivation meaning “farmer of your group”.
Until 1759 the art of FLAMENCO was a secret one, only for the gypsies, connected with their way of
life, the expulsion or the deprivations they underwent and was never executed in public. From now on
their art is starting to be presented in public, having been named after the gypsies’ nickname:
FLAMENCO.
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