Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T04:02:00.400Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The politics of Flamenco: La leyenda del tiempo and ideology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2017

Jesús López-Peláez Casellas
Jesús López-Peláez Casellas*
Affiliation:
North American Academy of Spanish Language, Department of English Studies, Universidad de Jaén, Jaén, Spain E-mail: jlopez@ujaen.es
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Flamenco music has consistently been misrepresented as an exclusively aesthetic construct only concerned with the transmission of essential and timeless values and with the production of beauty. This insidious mystification is a consequence of the influence that several decades of nacionalcatolicismo (the ideological construction of Franco's Spain) has had over flamenco, together with its obscure and unclear origins, about three centuries ago. This paper will suggest that, against this commonly held belief, flamenco music frequently has a political agenda, which may be explicitly expressed in the lyrics of the cantes, or implicitly apparent in the formal and ideological structure of flamenco itself and its recordings. Camarón and Pachón's seminal La leyenda del tiempo (Polygram, 1979) will be explored both in its own right as one of the peaks of contemporary (new) flamenco and also as a clear showcase of how flamenco may be politicized in various ways and serve a clearly ideological purpose without neglecting its musical and aesthetic role.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , May 2017 , pp. 196 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Aix, F. 2010. ‘Lo que puede un cuerpo y por qué lo puede. Genealogía de la política del cuerpo en el arte flamenco a través de la huella musical africana’ (Sevilla, Universidad Internacional de Andalucía). http://ayp.unia.es/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=630 (accessed 20 March 2015)Google Scholar
Aix, F. 2014. Flamenco y poder. Un estudio desde la sociología del arte. (Madrid, SGAE)Google Scholar
Buendía, J.L. 1996–2002. ‘La temática de las coplas flamencas’, in Historia del flamenco, Navarro, J.L. and Ropero, M. (Sevilla, Tartessos), pp. 223–65Google Scholar
Cisneros-Kostic, R. 2009. ‘Flamenco and its Gitanos. An investigation of the paradox of Andalusia: History, politics and dance art’, unpublished MA thesis (The University of New Mexico)Google Scholar
Clemente, L. 1999. ‘Así que pasen veinte años. 20 muescas de La leyenda del tiempo’. http://www.flamenco-world.com/magazine/about/leyenda/eleyend.htm (accessed 20 January 2014)Google Scholar
Cruces Roldán, C. 1996–2002. ‘La dimensión socio-política en las letras flamencas’, in Historia del flamenco, ed. Navarro, J.L. and Ropero, M. (Sevilla, Tartessos), pp. 277–323 Google Scholar
D'Averc, Á. 2004. ‘La leyenda del tiempo’. http://www.rockdelux.com/discos/p/camaron-la-leyenda-del-tiempo.html (accessed 5 June 2014)Google Scholar
Eagleton, T. 1976. Marxism and Literary Criticism (London, Routledge)Google Scholar
Eagleton, T. 1991. Ideology. An Introduction (London, Verso)Google Scholar
Freud, S. 2002. Civilization and its Discontents (London, Penguin)Google Scholar
Gamboa, José Manuel. 2014. ‘Volando voy a la leyenda’, in Camarón. La leyenda del tiempo. Edición 35° aniversario (Universal Music Group)Google Scholar
García Gómez, G. 1999 ‘El arte flamenco en las dos Españas (Principio y fin del antiflamenquismo)’, in El flamenco en la cultura española, ed. Carmona, A. (Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Murcia), pp. 11–26 Google Scholar
García Lorca, F. 1987. (1931) Poem of the Deep Song , trans. by Bauer, Carlos (San Francisco, CA, City Lights)Google Scholar
García Lorca, F. 1998. (1922) Tragicomedia de don Cristóbal y la señá Rosita (Madrid, Cátedra)Google Scholar
García Lorca, F. 2005. Obras completas, Vol. 1., ed. García-Posada, M. (Barcelona, RBA/Instituto Cervantes)Google Scholar
González Climent, A. 1988. Flamencología (Córdoba, Ayto de Córdoba/Área de Cultura) (originally published 1955).Google Scholar
Grande, F. 1979. Memoria del flamenco, Vol. 1 (Madrid, Espasa-Calpe)Google Scholar
Grande, F. 1999. ‘“¡Don Manuel, que nos vamos!” Falla. Granada 1922. El “Concurso de Cante Jondo”’, in El flamenco en la cultura española, ed. Carmona, A. (Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Murcia), pp. 27–63 Google Scholar
Hayes, M.H. 2009. Flamenco: Conflicting Histories of the Dance (Jefferson, NC, McFarland)Google Scholar
Herzog, A. 2010. Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same (Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press)Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. 1983. The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)Google Scholar
Issorel, J. 1998. ‘Introducción’, in Villalón, F., Poesías completas (Madrid, Cátedra), 9–98 Google Scholar
Lacuesta, I. 2006. La leyenda del tiempo (film, BNC)Google Scholar
López Ruiz, L. 2007 (1999). Guía del flamenco (Madrid, Akal)Google Scholar
Lole y Manuel. 1975. Nuevo día, prod. R. Pachón (movieplay)Google Scholar
Lotman, J. 2001. Universe of the Mind. A Semiotic Theory of Culture (London, Tauris)Google Scholar
Mairena, A. and Molina, R. 1963. Mundo y formas del cante flamenco. (Madrid, Revista de Occidente)Google Scholar
Martínez Hernández, J. 1999. ‘Los intelectuales con el flamenco: Del concurso de Granada a nuestros días’, in El flamenco en la cultura española, ed. Carmona, A. (Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Murcia), pp. 63–75 Google Scholar
Navarro, J.L. and Ropero, M. 1996–2002. Historía del flamenco, 6 vols (Sevilla, Tartessos)Google Scholar
Ortiz, F. 2007 Lírica andaluza contemporánea (Sevilla, Almuzara)Google Scholar
Ortiz Nuevo, J.L. 1985. Pensamiento político en el cante flamenco (Sevilla, Biblioteca de Cultura Andaluza)Google Scholar
Pinilla, J. 2011. Las voces que no callaron. Flamenco y revolución (Librodisco) (Sevilla, Atrapasueños)Google Scholar
Rodríguez Baltanás, E.J. 1990. Flamenco y literatura (Sevilla, Guadalmena)Google Scholar
Romero Jiménez, J. 1996. La otra historia del flamenco (La tradición semítico musical andaluza), 2 vols (Sevilla, Centro Andaluz de Flamenco)Google Scholar
Street, J. 2003. ‘“Fight the power”: The politics of music and the music of politics’, Government and Opposition, 38/1, pp. 113–30Google Scholar
Street, J., Hague, S. and Savigny, H. 2008. ‘Playing to the crowd: The role of music and musicians in political participation’, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 10/2, pp. 269–85Google Scholar
Villalón, F. 1998. Poesías completas (Madrid, Cátedra)Google Scholar
Washabaugh, W. 1996. Flamenco: Passion, Politics and Popular Culture (Oxford Berg)Google Scholar
Washabaugh, W. 2012. Flamenco Music and National Identity in Spain (Farnham, Ashgate)Google Scholar
Williams, R. 1977. Marxism and Literature (Oxford, Oxford University Press)Google Scholar

Discography

Berberian, John, Middle Eastern Rock. Verve/Forecast. 1969 Google Scholar
Camarón, (Monge, José) and Pachón, Ricardo, La leyenda del tiempo. Polygram. 1979 (2014)Google Scholar
Gerena, Manuel, Cantes del pueblo para el pueblo. Edigsa. 1974 Google Scholar
Menese, José, Andalucía: 40 años. RCA. 1978 Google Scholar
Sabicas, (Campos, Agustín Castellón) and Beck, Joe, Encuentros con el Rock/Rock Encounter. Polydor. 1970 Google Scholar
Veneno, , Veneno. CBS. 1977 Google Scholar