Here’s a Tangos de Málaga letra that we learned with David Romero in Barcelona.
Those are some madroños from the Mercat Central here in Valencia.
I remember going there in 1998, the first time I came to Spain. It was February, and there were no madroños.
Anyway, the fruit lady told us to eat them as-is. No washing. No doing anything to them.
We followed her instructions.
Yum.
Tangos
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La que quiera madroños vaya a la sierra
olé Morena vaya a la sierra
porque se están secando sus madroñeras
olé morena sus madroñeras
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Last night we were doing palmas with Pedro.
It's something we do when we come to Jerez.
Naturally people had many questions
and requests.
Someone asked to do some palmas por alegrías
... since we'd been dancing alegrías with Mercedes.
Pedro talked about las alegrías de Córdoba. He mentioned the letra about the platero.
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Ricardo asked me how things were going here in Jerez.
I told him everything was great
Everyone was happy. We were hearing tons of flamenco. Doing tons of flamenco. Learning a lot. The weather was nice...
"Todo bien," I told him, except that I felt like my body looked weird when I danced.
"Andaaaaa. Tu cabeza si que es rara."
"Come on! Your head is what is messed up," he told me.
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This morning in class we were talking about tonight's show at the Villamarta, the Homenaje a la Chaty.
Somebody asked Mercedes what she would be dancing in the show. They were hoping it would be alegrías since that's what we're learning from her in the workshop.
"Let's see if Laura can guess what I'm going to dance..."
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I have a bulerías letra to share with you today.
We got to Jerez on a Friday. But I forgot that it was Friday. We went from Paris to Madrid. From Madrid to Sevilla. And from Sevilla to Jerez.
And we were here.
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It's a full moon today. And so...
Luna Llena
Camarón
¿Quién me contaría a mí de qué está hecha la luna?
Si de rosas, de jazmines o de sábanas de cuna.
La luna llena.
Tú eres errante,
tú eres flamenca, ay, y canastera.
Y en lo alto del monte le dice piropos
un olivo a una estrella.
Y por ser la más guapa y celosa,
la luna se ha pintao los ojillos color de aceituna.
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It was 2008. And I was in Jerez.
Ten years had passed since that first trip to Spain.
Finally, I had made it back.
So there I was, at the festival, getting ready to study with my best friend for the very first time.
It was Ricardo who told me I needed to study with him.
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Last week the Friday letra turned into much more than just a letra. This week, I'll keep it simple.
Here's another estribillo por fandangos.
Un estribillo por fandangos
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Sentado en el valle
debajo de un limonero
Escucho sonar el río
Mi sombra da en el romero
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The first time I went to Sevilla I met this guy, José Luís. No, it wasn't like that. You could say he was a friend of a friend.
If you want to skip the story
Just scroll down to the bottom of the post for today's letra and a really cool video.
So José Luís is one of those people who is constantly telling jokes.
Well, constantly saying funny things is more like it because they're not jokes, not exactly. Some people call them jokes, but they're not what I have ever understood to be jokes. I guess because I'm American. And not just that, but I'm from Oregon.
José Luís is always saying funny things and making himself, and other people if they get it, laugh.
You could call him witty, but it's more than that. It's witty in a Sevillano way. Ingenioso. Agudo. That's what the dictionary is calling it.
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~ ¿Por qué? Muchas razónes... body mind challenge, growth, because I can, because I have to for sanity and so much more ~
"Why?
To connect To challenge To remember To create To shift To celebrate"
"Flamenco
asks me again and again to look inward. Through messing up, experimenting, and figuring out THAT step or THAT turn, I learn new things about myself. It's visceral. AND it's fun!"
"To see
what my body is capable of"
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Here are a couple of other letras we danced to with Mercedes Ruíz on the Flamenco Tour to JerezTangos de la
Porque te quiero
dicen que estoy loco yo…
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The other night, well actually it was a couple of months ago, I was lying awake in my bed. It was way past my bedtime. And I had this feeling.
This feeling of gratitude.
Agradecimiento.
For technology for allowing me to lie in my bed in Portland, Oregon and watch bulerías in Spain while keeping compás on the side of the bed.
It happened while I was watching this video of David Palomar.
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Last time we were in Jerez I was asking Mercedes for clarification of the words to a tangos letra that we were dancing to. I got so excited when I saw the Guión to her show Perspectivas (which she got out to show me the words) that she loaned it to me to so that I could look at all of the letras. This is a colombianas I found in there:
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I was rehearsing with Kuma the other day when I accidentally learned a bunch of lessons. All lessons that I'd learned before, as so often is the case.
He was playing cajón. I was dancing. And not long into things, the re-noticings started coming. One after another. I had to keep running over to my phone to write them down. Because I was so excited. And because I didn't want to forget.
After awhile, on account of one of the noticings, I realized it was time to stop running away from our practice to write them down.
This was important.
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One letra. Varios palos. We know how this goes in flamenco.
Faly used to sing this one por bulerías:
Tangos
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Dolores
¿Con qué te lavas la cara?
Que tanto te huele a flores
Dolores
With what do you wash your face?
You smell so much like flowers
Watch this little boy sings it por tangos.
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You know I've been on a bit of a fandangos kick lately.
And yesterday I was listening to a bootleg (Do we still call it that?) from a friend of a live Vicente Amigo show from 2002.
And I was reminded of this song.
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I didn't know what to post today, so I decided to get out my beautiful, shiny book, La poesía del flamenco, the one that I bought on the first flamenco tour, and choose a letra from the first page I opened to, whatever it happened to be. So, I took the book in my hands, held it for a few moments, and opened carefully.
Why carefully?
Quite honestly, I'm not sure.