Sunday, March 1, 2009

Hey guys sorry it's been so long. I'll try to update quickly. Tuesday night I went with the band from Amarillo (They're from Sean and Shelley's area, the team came this week to play some music and to visit Sean and Shelley, as well as do some prayer walking around Sevilla) to a flamenco show in the Jewish Quarter of town, right behind the cathedral and what Sean told us is the old Muslim fort. Apparently the King and Queen come to stay there when they visit Sevilla. They have their own private rooms. I tried to get some pictures, but I will spare you. For some reason the flash on my camera is turned off, and the flash button where I can fix it doesn't work. Therefore, I had to depend on everyone else's flash in the dimly lit room. Pictures weren't allowed until the last 5-10 minutes of the show anyway, and flamenco is very fast. Needless to say, all of my pictures are blurry and sometimes the people don't have heads or bodies at all. I absolutely loved the show though. The first number began with a guitar player and a singer, the second added a woman for extra rhythm (and voice encouragement? It's hard to explain, but it seems very typical of flamenco dancing. There are a lot of "ole"s and "vale"s) for the male dancer on stage. I'm not gonna lie, the first thing you notice when this guy comes onstage is his very tight pants. Later we discussed what kind of underpants he must have been wearing. Thankfully, as soon as he starts moving his feet, your attention is drawn to them. Flamenco bears a strong resemblance to tap dancing, with less suave movement and more angular, passionate body language. The taps on the wooden platform were very loud, and my attention was riveted to the stage. I was most excited when the female dancer got onstage and the two danced together. The story was one of unrequited love; the two obviously wanted to be together but played a cat and mouse and could never quite get in sync with one another's feelings. It was beautiful. The guitar player did a piece of his own as well, using all of his fingers to play. It was interesting to watch, but I found myself questioning his actual talent, he couldn't keep my attention as well as the dancers did. Maybe I found the melody too repetitive; regardless, I couldn't have done it. It was a lovely evening, and I was thankful that I could catch a  bus at the end of the night back to my apartment with Maria and Caramelo.

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