An Andalucian Journey: Gypsies and Flamenco (1988). A spellbinding study of place, people & music.

Both parts of a two-part piece with English subtitles. Jana Bokova's film travels from Seville to Cadiz to explore flamenco as a gypsy art form, one that continues to be passed down in extended families, or "dynasties." Most of the artists interviewed are not professionals; rather, they are field workers, basket weavers, who have perfected flamenco with all the skill and pride of professionals. That is what being part of a flamenco dynasty is about. That is what "grace" is about. But the powerful tensions in the music and movements of flamenco also are quite intimate, individual. "I think flamenco could have come from a cry," the singer Chocolate muses. Bokova's camera is frequently still, with life passing, or performing, before it. In Andalucian Journey she also offers still-life portraits of these proud families whose pictures will otherwise never find their way into the archives.
(BERKELEY ART MUSEUM & PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE)
An Andalucian Journey: Gypsies and Flamenco.
The flamenco of southern Spain is more than music and much more than an exhilarating dance for the tourists. It's the soul of a culture, and its roots go back to the 15th century when gypsy travellers made their way via Asia and North Africa to Spain. Today the real flamenco is kept alive by the gypsy families of Andalucia. Through their private family rituals, baptisms, marriages and fiestas, the new generation of Andalucian gypsies learns flamenco from its elders, the great solo cantores and the most powerful and accomplished dancers of flamenco in the world. Today the families are no longer travellers - they are integrated, socially and economically, with the population. But they keep alive their traditions with pride, and in this film Arena travels to meet them and to see and hear the real flamenco.
(BBC)
Performers include Chocolate, Anica la Piriñaca, Fernanda de Utrera, Moraito, Farruco, Juanito Villar, Angelita Vargas & El Bien Casao.
Film cameraman David Feig. Film editor Yves Deschamps. Series editors Anthony Wall and Nigel Finch.
Produced and directed by Jana Bokova
The introduction to Part 1 (about 90 seconds) which is in English is missing from this copy. It can be seen here on a copy that lacks English subtitles for the Spanish: • An Andalucian Journey:...
UN VIAJE ANDALUZ GITANOS Y FLAMENCO (1988)
El flamenco del sur.
España es más que música y mucho más que un baile estimulante para los turistas. Es el alma de una cultura, y sus raíces se remontan al siglo XV cuando los viajeros gitanos se abrieron paso a través de Asia y el norte de África hasta España. Hoy el flamenco real lo mantienen vivo las familias gitanas de Andalucía. A través de sus rituales familiares privados, bautizos, matrimonios y fiestas, la nueva generación de gitanos andaluces aprende el flamenco de sus mayores, los grandes cantores solistas y los bailaores de flamenco más poderosos y consumados del mundo. Hoy las familias ya no son viajeros, están integradas social y económicamente con la población. Pero mantienen vivas sus tradiciones con orgullo, y en esta película Arena viaja para conocerlos y ver y escuchar el flamenco real.

[@JuanEstebanElrubio]

Esta película representa una obra magistral, estrenada en una época en la que el flamenco no era conocido en su autenticidad más pura... feliz que todos puedan tener acceso a este documental de gran importancia para la cultura musical andaluza ...

[@bethbartlett5692]

... and my Espanol is just so muy feyo. But! My Soul knows the Energ8es if the vibe! Theres a History of my Soul's association with the Gypsy Music, there's a knowing of this music, a familiarity that I've come to accept as a Past Life Association. I have a wide range of appreciation for various styles of music. Music was 1 of my majors in High School, but I focused elsewhere in College, (yet Music is a Universal Vibration of Energy) and largely all require it as a part of their life. Considering that I am an Irish American, lineage of County Kerry, Ireland and Basque Origin, born in Chicago, raised in West Tennessee, lived in Nevada for 17 years, "not a great deal of Gypsy Jazz influence going on ..." But once I discovered it and the various styles, it is where I go for a feeling of "Harmony". I place great stock in My Intuition, Clairsentience, and Claircognizance, (Clear Feeling and Clear Knowing) occasional Clairvoyance. Therein lies the greater Reality, Quantum Physics Science is proved this as Fact. My Soul knows ... ✨

[@user-tj5of1cd8k]

Very beautiful 💕 Thank you so much!

[@sandravaz408]

Beautiful people, music and history

[@qhodave]

Thank you so much for the upload. I've been looking for this for a long time

[@nanitree6151]

Great documentary in terms of anthropological research

[@redatticus7606]

Opre Roma! Love from India

[@ij9401]

Thank you for uploading this documentary with English subtitles, so people who don't understand the Spanish language like me can also inform themselves about this important history. Greetings from the Netherlands.

[@jandunn169]

Fantastico!!!

[@goodwifelucy5602]

Blissful. Thank you 💓

[@carmenlobatonramirez2513]

❤ olé

[@makremsadoq6645]

bravou

[@kipponi]

Lyrics are like blues and comping is more dissonant. Stories of life. Same as blues. I try to find one man who lives on mountains with lambs and rarely give concerts!?Flamenco Singer, beard man with black cowboy hat. It is documentary which I saw in Finland television. Now I know El Cabrero. It was in BBC document Flamenco gypsy soul. 6years ago.

[@elairedelacallematajare]

few time ago I noticed that Flamenco and R&B are very similar... they sing about melancholy and other things

[@RicardoMarlowFlamenco]

In addition, the formal structure of blues form is similar to the cante levante formal structure (dominant 7 chords using I IV and V back and forth) where the “turn around” resolves to the major tonic, the melody on the major third of the blues (in C its Eb-E natural), in cante the “turn around” is resolved on the major third with the chord as well, evoking instead the “Arabic” or eastern sound (again Eb-E natural, in western terms the augmented 6th chord resolution). The Taranto is the closest to this formal structure.

[@felicitytoad]

🥰

[@colleenbonniwell4226]

every step matters

[@emilnimerleddawy7253]

28:54 Fase 1 31:00 Fase 2 31:59 Fase 3

[@RicardoMarlowFlamenco]

41:58…jajajajaja😂

[@cuervodesantos9316]

Pasos y movimientos de reguetón desde el minuto 12:22 al 13:22... jajaja

[@MariaGasca-Reyes]

So basically the Romani gypsy Culture has been apropriated by the Spainards

[@marramambertamarramamberta9107]

Not in regard to flamenco. Flamenco is a hybrid: Romani, Jewish, Arabic and autochthonous from Spain too. No denial that the Romani had a great influence on flamenco, but one cannot say it is just Romani. If it was just Romani, it would have also emerged in other places where Romani went --but it didn't. Also, the Spanish and classical guitar were instruments widely played in Spain before the arrival of the Romani. Other additions to flamenco are the castanets (castañuelas), which were used in "jotas" and other instruments that were incorporated thereafter.

[@el_aleman]

@@marramambertamarramamberta9107 Thank you for your well constructed and researched reply to this comment. I play flamenco guitar and I cannot imagine why terms such as “cultural appropriation” must enter the dialogue of this beautiful art form.

[@marramambertamarramamberta9107]

​@@el_aleman I agree with you 100%. I understand the posture of both Romani and payos claiming flamenco their own. However, flamenco would not be what it is without the Andalusian mixture. There is a singer now, Rosalía", who sings flamenco and she is not Romani. The Romani don't like her because they feel that she is trying to sing like the Romani. Here is an interview in which she explains how she feels about flamenco as an ever changing music, full of diverse influences: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l2XSm52lgqtgeJY And I totally agree with this. For example, Camarón started to fusion flamenco with elements of jazz (including drums and electric instruments in one of his songs --when the flamenco traditionalists bought that record, they were so surprised and disgusted that returned the record to the store), and Paco de Lucía incorporated the Peruvian "cajón" (cajón peruano) into flamenco. Indeed, we can't forget the payo influence through the history of flamenco: Antonio Chacón, Franconetti, Javier Molina, Paco de Lucía, Manolo Sanlúcar and so many other. I am not sure about other guitarists of flamenco (for example, the more recent ones, like "Tomatito", Vicente Amigo, Antonio Rey (I suspect this one is Romani)... Look, some of the best flamenco has come from Romani and payos making flamenco together, as did Camarón and Paco de Lucía. Solipsism is not a good thing.