Before Noche Flamenca performed at the Rialto Center for Performing Arts on November 12, Julie Baggenstoss gave a pre-show lecture on the evolution of flamenco. Her lecture notes are transformed below into educational reading for jaleole.com visitors

Simple Beginning

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That's how flamenco began. It was simple. Someone clapped their hands to make a rhythm while someone else sang a song. There was no theater, no production crew, no cast of dancers nor audience.

Flamenco began as an art of expression, an art of celebration among gypsy circles in southern Spain. The public was not invited. In fact, the public was not allowed. Flamenco was a private thing for families and close friends. But, somehow it transitioned from the private gypsy circle to the public stage, where performers show the art to complete strangers.

That transition took about 200 years, and it brought many changes to the art. The changes are important because they ultimately created two kinds of flamenco that we see today: the flamenco that happens in private and the flamenco that is performed in public.

The flamenco that happens in private is the original flamenco of the gypsies who first gave rise to the art centuries ago. They do not send out invitations and they do not ask passers by to gather around to watch. It is a spontaneous art that happens whenever people versed in the tradition decide they are in the mood for it. The celebration that ensues is the result of a give and take between the people making it happen.

By contrast, flamenco performed in public is well rehearsed and the show is announced so that a crowd can gather to watch it. It has to be this way, because an audience is needed to pay ticket prices to fund the theater expenses. The audience then expects to see a well coordinated group of people moving together on stage. The audience wants to hear singers who are in tune and musicians who are in time with one another. Then, the show tickets and the performers are worth their value.

Fortunately, the flamenco that the gypsies first created is still around. It happens without notice in gypsy homes in Seville, caves of Sacremonte, dimly lit bars of Jerez and a few unsuspecting places. This kind of flamenco has never stopped, but it is not common on a public stage.

Today, these two kinds of flamenco are somewhat merging. More and more performing artists are trading the glamour and dazzle of theater for the simple form of flamenco shared by gypsies at private gatherings. Noche Flamenca, which performed at the Rialto on November 12, is one group of these artists. It has built a strong reputation for presenting shows that are true to the origins of flamenco and pure to the art's roots.

To truly understand the meaning of phrases like "true to the origins" and "pure to the art's roots," you must understand where flamenco came from and what happened to it as it became the art it is today.

History Lesson

Historians disagree as to exactly when flamenco was first "invented." The exact origin date of flamenco is tough to nail down because the gypsies who gave rise to it did not keep written records. Some of the first references to gypsies doing flamenco-type things come from the fifteenth century. Flamenco has been referenced by non-gypsies in literature, paintings and drawings through history, but no history book dating back to the beginning of flamenco time exists.

Historians generally agree, however, that these gypsies were from India. They crossed much land and eventually settled in southern Spain, called Andalusia.

Andalusia has changed hands many times because its seabound rivers were historically important to trade and communication. For example, Rome invaded and took charge of it. Centuries later, the culture dramatically changed when the Moors invaded, and then things changed again when the Christians re-invaded. With each new ruler came new laws, culture and arts, architecture, religion and more. As each old ruler exited, he left behind smudges of his mores.

These cultural differences worked their way into gypsy life and are evident in flamenco. Flamenco music has Arabic influences; lyrics are written in the Spanish dialect calo; and lyrics speak of God and the Catholic faith. Flamenco is flamenco because of the social, political and religious changes that happened every time Andalusia fell to the hands of a new leader.

While living in Andalusia, the gypsies met a lot of discrimination. Mainstream society stereotyped them as criminals and beggars. They were not welcome in many neighborhoods and were forced to leave town altogether in some circumstances.

All this discrimination brought the gypsies to circle their wagons so to speak. Somewhat cut off from mainstream society, the gypsies cultivated what was ultimately a unique lifestyle. Their lifestyle included family parties where singing was the focus ­ singing flamenco.

When you think of a family party in flamenco terms, don't think of today's version of the family: Mom, Dad, the two kids and the dog. Rather, think of today's family reunion, attended by mom, dad, the kids, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and those not really blood related but adopted through years of friendship.

Now, you've got enough people to have a party - a juerga as it is called in flamenco terms.

Flamenco began at these juergas. The parties would begin around midnight and go on until the sun came up. Everyone knew everyone at the parties, and everyone knew who at the party could sing. Those who could sing would do so when the mood came over them. Songs often began with a jovial tone, then after hours of sherry-infused soul cleansing, they turned to the dark side. Songs about love and joy gave way to those about sorrow, loneliness and death.

The so-called "sad songs" of flamenco cover the dark human emotions that we all feel, but in America in 2005, we do not talk about. We do not like to say, "I am jealous. I am sad. I am angry." Instead, we push these feelings deep down inside of us and hide them away.

On the other hand, the gypsies reached deep inside of themselves and pulled out these feelings. They cried out about them and shared them with friends and family. Then, together, they got through the rough times.

In flamenco terms, we call these sad songs "jondo." Many believe flamenco isn't flamenco unless there is some jondo to it. Just as no one can feel happy all of the time, flamenco can not only portray only the light side of the human psyche. It must delve into the dark, deep emotions felt especially by gypsies who were shunned, run out of town, arrested and otherwise unwelcome.

And so flamenco continued within gypsy family circles for hundreds of years. At some point, dancing and guitar music were added to the hand clapping and singing. During these centuries, flamenco did not leave the gypsy circle, except when someone here or there would perform the art along a street for a few coins tossed into a hat.

Beginning of Change

Around the beginning of the nineteenth century, non-gypsies began hiring gypsies to perform at private parties. This happened on a small scale, with the would-be audience consisting of a small number of people gathered at a private home for an evening. Partygoers liked the flamenco they saw and hiring gypsies to perform became a popular thing to do.

Some businessmen in Andalusia took note of flamenco's growing popularity at these parties and decided to capitalize on it. They began opening "cafes cantantes" around 1850, providing the first official stages for gypsies to perform flamenco in front of a public audience that paid an admission price to see a show.

A café cantante would have been located in a commercial business space along an Andalusian street. It would have housed a small stage, some chairs for a small audience and a bar. Shows would have happened throughout the day and would have been attended by locals and tourists. Cafes cantantes thrived through Andalusia and then spread to Madrid and Barcelona, taking flamenco out of Andalusia.

Flamenco later left Spain entirely with the rise of "Opera Flamenco." Opera Flamenco gave gypsy performers larger stages and larger audiences, such as in bull rings and theaters.

It also brought great change to the unwritten rules of flamenco. Opera Flamenco introduced full orchestras, making the traditional flamenco guitar only a part of a body creating music for singing and dancing. The list of flamenco songs that could be danced grew, while the list of songs that could not be danced shrank. More dancers began appearing on stage at one time, they began doing flashier steps and they added castanets to their acts. Singers started covering Andalusian pop music in the flamenco style.

All of this change outraged many gypsies who were watching their family pastime morph on the public stage. Some said their art was being diluted and that flamenco was no longer flamenco.

Then, another change occurred that stirred more objections. The so-called producers of the flamenco performances for the cafes cantantes and opera flamenco observed that audiences weren't enjoying the jondo songs. They instructed the performers to omit jondo pieces from their acts. The performers, who were making money and becoming famous, acquiesced.

At this point, flamenco as it was performed before the public greatly diverged from the original flamenco that sprung in gypsy enclaves. Fortunately, that original flamenco was still taking place ­ offstage. After the shows and even when there was no show, gypsies still got together and celebrated with their own flamenco, singing, dancing and playing music, as they had for centuries before. It still happens today, even after all of the rest of the changes that have come to flamenco.

Return of Jondo

By the 1950s, the heyday of Opera Flamenco and cafes cantantes had come and gone, and another wave of flamenco performance was taking shape. Spanish dance companies were touring the world presenting several dances of Spain, including flamenco. Unlike their Opera Flamenco predecessors, these performers decided that they would put flamenco jondo on the stage. They took both sides of flamenco - light and dark - around the world and the world loved it. In fact, a new generation of aficionados was born, many of whom traveled to Spain specifically seeking flamenco in its mother land.

Fusion Succeeds

Jump ahead about 10 or 20 years, when a man by the name of Paco de Lucia threw his hat in the flamenco business ring. Lucia is one of the greatest flamenco guitarists ever, and he performed at the Rialto Center for Performing Arts just last year.

Lucia has been highly successful in selling flamenco records and later CDs, in part because he bridged flamenco with different forms of music, including jazz and Brazilian. He took elements of these other kinds of music and put them into his flamenco music, a technique that is called fusion.

Lucia was not the first person to experiment with fusion. All of the new instruments and songs that were added to flamenco during the days of Opera Flamenco brought about some fusion. It just didn't catch on back then.

Lucia may have found success with fusion in part because he first rooted himself in traditional flamenco. He earned the respect of those who shepherded the art from generation to generation. He didn't get out of the box before working with some of the greatest singers of gypsy flamenco.

There has been much fusion in flamenco since Paco de Lucia. Modern flamenco companies present flamenco along with elements such as soul singers, dumbec drums, ballet dancers, brass horns, electric guitars and contemporary dancers. Many of these companies are from Spain, and are intentionally changing the art. Some are located in other countries, where local flavor involuntarily slips into flamenco.

One Spanish flamenco company brought me to a revelation about fusion and flamenco. Rafael Amarga presented his production of La Poeta En Nueva York as part of the Festival de Jerez in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, in 2003. The show was very avant guard, very eclectic, and very gothic. There was an American jazz piece with a tap dancer, ballet dancers moved around the stage at times, and a couple of scenes looked like they were inspired by West Side Story. There were also some pure flamenco pieces.

At one point, a would-be ballet dancer appeared on stage in a beautiful green ballerina costume, pink tights and black flamenco shoes. Her arms were tangled in rubber bands suspended over her head. The music began. It was played by flamenco musicians who were using flamenco instruments, but it was not a flamenco song. The dancer's choreography - of contemporary dance - was actually a fight to get loose from the bands. I thought to myself as I watched her, what do the Spanish think of this? Are they wrenching in their seats because this is extreme fusion? Will they scoff at this show when they leave the theater? Then, the dancer stopped moving and gave one quick splat of footwork. In response came a deep, resounding "Ole!" from the audience.

I couldn't believe it. What I could not believe most was that my definition of flamenco was so different from what I had seen on stage that night. It was a flamenco company performing in a flamenco festival. There was some flamenco on the stage, but there was a lot of other art. So, why do they call it flamenco? Why not call it a variety show?

With Amarga's production, I realized that flamenco is a lot of things. It is a tradition, a family pastime of a scorned people. Those people, the gypsies, put flamenco in front of the public, who then changed it. The public also loved flamenco so much that many non-gypsies took up the art form, learning, performing and teaching it around the world.

Evolution Continues

With each step outside of the gypsy circle, flamenco has evolved. And, it will continue to evolve. It's part of the nature of art, after all. To tell a musician to stop coming up with new ideas is to tell him to stop being creative, stop being an artist. That simply can't be done.

As flamenco evolves, we'll mark significant changes in the art form. We may be seeing one such change take place today, in 2005. More and more flamenco companies, such as Noche Flamenca, are showing audiences flamenco as it happens in gyspy circles. They're reaching into history to represent a pure vision of flamenco, void of the glitz of show business. They're showing audiences where our beloved art form began, giving its forefathers the respect that they deserve.

Understanding flamenco's evolution makes it possible to truly appreciate both old and new flamenco; traditional and contemporary flamenco; happy and sad flamenco; fast and slow flamenco.

But no matter how you label the flamenco you see, it's important to let it do its job.

At it's core, flamenco is an art of expression. In gypsy circles, singers share their deepest feelings in an intimate setting with their loved ones. On the stage, the artistic director makes his statement by using a cast of dancers and musicians. No matter what, something is being said when flamenco happens. As you experience flamenco, let yourself receive the message that is in front of you. Let it get under your skin. Let your heart cry when you identify with a sad song. Let yourself bounce around in your seat when you're moved by a cheerful rhythm. And, when flamenco strikes you at your core, let everyone know it by giving them a good "Ole!"