More than just passionate dancing, Flamenco dance and music are deeply rooted in Spanish culture, blending music, movement, and storytelling. Granted, those roots dig down into some uncomfortable soil, including the typical (in Europe at least) anti-Roma sentiment and a general sense that it was a lewd art form unfit for performance in polite society. Well, we aren’t all that polite, and for many people Seville is the home, the birthplace, of Flamenco. (Although in more than one city we were told “you have to see Flamenco here; Seville says they are the home of it, but actually it’s <the city we’re in>.”) Well, we had migrated to Seville from Madrid for the second “home base” of our trip, so there was no way we weren’t going to give it a try.
We got into our hotel in Seville without difficulty; the Triana House Hotel is cleverly named, being in the Triana neighborhood as it is. You’d think we were in a pedestrian-only zone from the width of the streets but nope! You squeeze to one side and the oncoming car squeezes to the other and avoid taking any deep breaths. The hotel itself is probably one of the quirkier ones we’ve ever been in that wasn’t annoying in its quirkiness. Sometimes these kinds of places are just too invested in being so very very, but Triana House was cozy and the staff was incredibly solicitous.
The historic center of Seville manages to maintain more of its character than Madrid, if for no other reason than that Madrid is more of metropolitan city; tourism is certainly a major industry there, but it’s not the only thing going on. Seville definitely feels like it relies on tourism, if not to the extent of, say, Venice. Still, we were there to be tourists so having a handy “tourist central” area was efficient if nothing else.
Our first evening, however, was indeed dominated by dinner-and-a-show at El Patio Sevillano. (“Patio” seems to be the colloquial term for places where flamenco performances occur, probably because they originated as peasant gatherings out on… you know, patios. Now, you’ll see very elaborate, beautiful establishments that still call themselves “patio something or other”. ) To get this out of the way up front: we had a fine time, but are pretty sure that there are better versions of this entertainment in town elsewhere.
The performance hall at El Patio Sevillano is huge. Enormous. Probably seating for 150-200 on the main floor, with a balcony level ringing the space on three sides. There’s general seating in the central area, and underneath the hang of the balcony is where the dining seating is placed. Here’s the thing – we were there with many 20 other people in total, and only 2 other tables of diners (out of maybe 15 or so total available). Photos online seem to indicate that they configure their space in various ways (more or less tables or whatnot). IWe’re not sure if it was just a bad time of year or if word had gotten around, but there was a kind of cavernous quality to the sound, which was half live and half piped in.
Despite the seeming focus on the dancer, the heart of flamenco is the cante, the singing. Original flamenco was comprised purely of singing and hand clapping. Flamenco musicians improvise to match the emotions of the singer by finger snapping, hand clapping, and shouting. (Guitar wasn’t regularly incorporated into the performance until the 19th century.) The performers this night were giving it their all, and it seemed like a lot of talent was on display. The show was maybe 90 minutes long, broken into a 8 or so vignettes, mixing and matching from an ensemble of 7 or 8 dancers (there were a lot of costume changes, maybe we lost track of who was who). The live music was definitely the superior performance choice; the guitarists and the singers were all on point. All in all, we enjoyed the show and are glad to have seen it, but it’s not likely that we will seek this venue out again when we return to Seville some day.
Oh. Forgot to mention dinner…. yeah, that about sums it up. In any case, the evening was far from a failure, it just wasn’t (we imagine) an exemplary show for its type. Nevertheless, our appetites were prepped for a full day of exploring the city.
