In this video, flamenco parties are explained without the halo of legend that sometimes surrounds them. Work engagement? A big spree? Expert musicians give us the keys in a simple way to understand what defines these festivities.
According to these experts, flamenco festivals are a part of the work of many artists. It can be seen reflected in the time of the private parties of the singing cafes of the second half of the nineteenth century. By the way, they endured into the twentieth century. The situation was this: some singing fans gathered in private rooms of those cafes and, later, of the tablaos, paid artists for their singing and dancing recitals.
This became a whole party with its goodness and its evils. Many flamingos lived on it while waiting for their big opportunity. Camarón de la Isla was very much in demand, for example, in the flamenco festivals of the famous Venta de Vargas (San Fernando, Cádiz).
The book El cante de cuartito. Flamenco in the Alameda de Hércules, is an investigative work of the journalist Dolores Pantoja Guerrero, analyzes this issue of flamenco festivals but in that area of Seville. In intimate rooms, between gentlemen and prostitutes, La Macarrona, La Niña de los Peines, Caracol, Pepe Marchena or Antonio Mairena could act in their origins. After all, you had to eat.
The parties outside this workplace, the fuss or revelry, were already for pleasure and were something else.