catch up: flamenco festival in Jerez

This trip actually happened in March, but I haven’t taken the time to write about it yet.  Here goes…

Reba has always been interested in dance, and spent a lot of her youth studying ballet.  So, it wasn’t surprising when after a trip to Spain a few years back, she saw some people practicing flamenco in a park and became quite interested.  When we got back to Seattle, she joined a flamenco class and started giving performances with the class, listening to the music at home, seeing various flamenco groups when they came through Seattle etc.  Some of the girls in her class go to a yearly flamenco festival in Jerez, Spain, which is really the heart of flamenco country.  This Festival de Jerez last a couple of weeks, and consists of performances by top dancers and musicians at night and classes taught by these same performers during the day.  Conveniently, the old part of Jerez is cute with little windy streets and not too many people, and it’s the home of Sherry (Jerez is the Spanish word for Sherry) and this requires lots of sampling. 

For the past two years, Reba has of course been a lot closer to Jerez and going to the festival has been just a matter of quick 2 hour flight from London.  This year, she brought me, Kaysa, Ginny, and Brandon who was officially renamed el Brandito for the duration of the trip. 

 

Meat

The first night was great.  We got into town, settled into our respective joints, and met in town for dinner.  We went to Maison Asador, which is basically a meaty meat restaurant in the middle of a meaty meat town.  Seafood is much less common in Jerez restaurants than in other parts of Spain, and this place takes this MO very seriously.  The jamon iberico is the best thing ever, this is a dry cured ham like Prosciutto or Serrano, but it comes from pigs that live in Oak groves and only eat acorns.  It’s very expensive outside of Spain, but still: eat this if you can!

Reba and Ginny, me and el Brandito, on our first night out.

 

Market Day

The next day, we went down to the old market to get olives, cheese, iberico, etc.  Even though there are supermarkets in town, this place is really popular with the locals.  Folks are hanging around socializing, eating, shopping, arguing, haggling, etc.  It seems like a very inefficient way to shop, but still a great way to spend an afternoon.

 

 

there actually is SOME seafood in Jerez after all…

 

Churros 

After the market, we went to the central square and bought churros from the stand there.  These are basically like long skinny donuts, and are pretty much all any Spaniard consumes for breakfast aside from coffee and cigarettes.

is that David Lee Roth buying churros with my wife?

 

Lazy People Drinking in Cafes

A LOT of our time was spend sitting in squares drinking and eating.  This is really a marvelous way to pass the time, I can’t recommend it highly enough.  Unlike the Belgians, Germans, English and Americans, the Spanish have really failed to develop a beer culture which produces a wide variety of beers.  However, they have achieved one spectacular success in the art of serving beer that may well have catapulted them past the aforementioned competitors.  This success is called the caña.  A caña is a small chilled glass, maybe 1/2 a pint, of very very cold light lager.  This is delicious and refreshing to the utmost.  Unlike the less chilled lagers of the English, the caña doesn’t get lukeware 1/2 through your pint and thus suggests again the superiority of Spanish culture over all others.

 

 

cañas

Flamenco Girls

What makes a girl decide to dive headfirst into a tiny arts subculture based in a foreign country 1/2 way around the globe?  I don’t know.  Maybe it’s just that everybody finds something in life, and these girls found this.  Maybe there is some deep hereditary subconscious sociological connection with this music and certain long lost daughters of Spain.  Maybe flamenco is just the coolest thing going.  Maybe these girls are just arty.  Whatever the case may be, there is a certain type that saves up her money, takes time off work, and travels to a dusty little southwestern Spanish town for the privilege of paying to take dance lessons in a room with no air conditioning from severe people who don’t speak your language.  These are the flamenco girls, and this time they were Carmen, Rachel and Dani (and Reba).

 

Carmen, Rachel, Reba, Dani in their ay yi yi am going out tonight in Jerez suits!

 

Flamenco Performances

Ostensibly, the point of this trip is to see a bit of top flight flamenco.  We got to see Rocio Molina’s dance company perform the Teatro Villamarta, and the world famous guitarist Tomatito in the Tio Pepe Sherry bodega (storehose), which had a very cool vibe.  There were a lot more performances that Reba and the flamenco girls went to including Mercedes Ruiz, Belen Maya, Antonio Marquez, Pete Habichulea and etc., but I try to limit myself so I don’t get burned out and thus I skipped a bunch.  The guitarist in Rocio Molina’s company played a Cuban steel string guitar that has a double string in the middle.  I was really inspired by this guy, his style was just oozing passion.  I’ve seen a lot of guitarists, and a lot of flamenco guitarists and normally I don’t get too worked up.  This time was something special however.

 

after the show, do what the Spanish people do

 

The Bullring

Bullfighting is big in Spain, and Jerez, like many other Spanish towns, has a bullring.  Lots of people hate the fact that bullfighting is still going on, think it’s cruel, barbaric, and whatever.  If this is you, I DON’T CARE so don’t waste your time typing me a rant.  I and many people from around the world like corrida, and if you don’t, then DON’T GO.  With that out of the way, I figured it was worthwhile to check out the ring in Jerez, even though the season wasn’t started yet.  Having seen most of my bullfights in Madrid at the fancy Las Ventas, I was a bit suprised to find the Jerez Plaza de Toros to be so dilapidated.  To get there we had to walk a ways out of the old town, and the part of Jerez we walked through was pretty damn dilapidated as well.  In Madrid, the ring is surrounded by tapas bars and little streets and a night out after the fights can be quite an elegant affair.  Not so here!  Oh well.

 

 

plaza de toros, Jerez

 

on the side of the ring there are pictures of famous toros going back over a hundred years

 

  

I just love this one of Kaysa

 

 

and this one was too cute to pass up!