A short history
Flamenco in Barcelona
How an Andalusian art reached Catalonia: an 1860 guitar piece, the rise of the tablao, and Carmen Amaya, the dancer born in Barcelona's Somorrostro.
Reserve your seat at City Hall ↗An Andalusian art in a Catalan city
UNESCO calls Andalusia the heartland of flamenco, with roots also in Murcia and Extremadura. Barcelona is far from that heartland, and yet the city has been part of the story for more than a century and a half. The written record reaches back to 1860, so a flamenco show on Rambla Catalunya is part of a long tradition, not a transplant.
A guitar piece written in 1860
Wikipedia dates one of the first pieces counted as flamenco guitar music to Barcelona. It is a rondeña for solo guitar by Julián Arcas, born in Almería province, dated to the city in 1860. The detail matters because it shows flamenco guitar becoming a solo art early, away from the singer. That solo tradition later grew into the concert flamenco guitar that a one-hour show now draws on.
From cafés cantantes to tablaos
Professional flamenco grew in the cafés cantantes, night bars that gave performers a stage, the first of which, opened by the singer Silvio Franconetti, Wikipedia places in Seville in 1842. Those rooms peaked from the mid-19th century into the 1910s. Tablaos, the smaller venues that replaced them, spread in the 1960s. A show today still follows that model: a dedicated room, a platform and a short programme of artists who do this for a living.
Carmen Amaya, born in Somorrostro
The dancer Carmen Amaya was born in the Somorrostro district of Barcelona to a Romani family. Her father was a guitarist who played in bars, and as a child she danced with him at night. A variety-show manager, Josep Santpere, introduced her to bigger venues, and she made her debut at Barcelona's Spanish Theatre. Soon afterwards she was performing at the Palace Theatre in Paris. She became known for footwork once reserved for the best male dancers.
A world stage
Amaya's career took her far beyond Catalonia. She sailed for Buenos Aires in 1936, made films, performed at Carnegie Hall in 1941 and, according to Wikipedia, was reported to have been invited by President Roosevelt to dance at the White House. On her return to Spain she appeared in Barcelona again, at the Tivoli theatre. For many visitors her name is the quickest way to understand that Barcelona has produced great flamenco, not just hosted it.
Honoured at home
Barcelona honoured Amaya with its Medal of Merit of Tourism and later built a fountain in her old district of Somorrostro, which lies along the Paseo Marítimo. Wikipedia also records that she danced for King Alfonso XIII at the opening of the 1929 International Exposition. After her death in 1963, a monument was placed in her memory on Montjuïc in 1966.
Why the history matters in the seat
None of this is needed to enjoy an hour of flamenco, but it changes how the hour feels. The guitar solo is not only an accompaniment to the dance: it has a history of its own, which this city's record takes back to the 1860s. The dancer's footwork has a Barcelona-born champion. And the room you sit in descends from the cafés and tablaos where professionals first made a living. You are watching a profession with a past, not a folk display.
Flamenco in Barcelona today
Barcelona keeps its flamenco in theatres, cellars and rooms around the old city and the Eixample, and it teaches the art too: Wikipedia lists the Superior Music School of Catalonia among the conservatories with flamenco studies. The one-hour shows on offer today are the descendants of the tablao tradition, shaped for visitors who have an evening, not a night. They give a quick way into a long history.
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