In the beginning was el cante—the song. ¶ The song

In the beginning was el cante—the song. ¶ The song was its own
instrument. Its notes, rhythms, and timbres were carried by the
currents of the Mediterranean and El Río Betis, today’s Guadalquivir,
the routes followed by multiethnic groups of nomadic Gypsies to
Andalucía in southern Spain. ¶ The song held a story of human
experience. Its mournful melody traced the grief, grit, and grace
of los Gitanos, the Gypsies, expressing centuries of persecution,
resistance, and, ultimately, survival. ¶ The song was pure emotion,
the sound of the soul itself.
56 E l P a l a c i o
Native New Mexican cantaor Vicente Griego, known as El Cartucho,
pictured in performance in Victoria, British Columbia. Born and raised
in Dixon, Griego embraces cante’s spirit of resistance as a shared
expression of the historical repression of the mixed cultures of northern
New Mexico and southern Spain. Photo by Helen Cyr.
E l P a l a c i o 57
T
ODAY, ALONG WITH EL BAILE (dance) and el toque
(guitar), el cante is among the trio of Spanish art forms
that comprise the dramatic performance art of flamenco.
But before the mid-nineteenth century, when dancers in
flashy flamenco costumes and fast-strumming guitarists
filled European theaters and cafes, flamenco was a communitybased folkloric tradition with cante at its core. Shared at home
or on the street, passed down from elders to youth, flamenco
personified a cante-driven conversation about the daily life
experiences of repressed minority peoples of Andalucía.
“Originally, flamenco was not performed before an audience,” wrote Nicolasa Chávez in The Spirit of Flamenco: From
Spain to New Mexico, the companion publication to the exhibition Flamenco: From Spain to New Mexico, on view at the
Museum of International Folk Art through September 10, 2017.
“Flamencos, those who are part of the flamenco community,
were not professional performers but everyday people.”
Leading the conversation was the male cantaor or female
cantaora. Their emotional oral histories and community narratives called family and friends to the kitchen table or the street
corner to listen. The singer’s distinctive inflection and vibrant
vocal trill inspired spontaneous dance with individuals engaging
directly with the singer, who steered the mood, tempo, and
direction. Theirs was an intimate, stripped-down interaction
that utilized the body’s basic instruments, from percussive footwork, to rhythmic palmas (hand clapping) and finger snapping,
to graceful floreos, arm and hand movements. Occasionally, the
bang of a wooden staff or cane on the floor or the clink of a
blacksmith’s martillo (hammer) on an anvil enhanced the beat.
Between 1880 and 1900, the flamencos of southern Spain
moved from society’s margins to center stage of flamenco’s
golden era.
“The transformation of a familial tradition into a respected
art form . . . did not go unnoticed,” Chávez wrote. “These
performers . . . shaped how we view, experience, and understand flamenco today.”
With flamenco’s transition to the global arena, however, cante
was upstaged. The singer’s idiosyncratic vocal stylings were
unfamiliar, perhaps even uncomfortable, to uninitiated ears.
The Spanish-language meanings of the singer’s stories were
undoubtedly lost on foreign audiences. Travelers, writers, and
others sought the “exotic” qualities of flamenco, but above all,
they wished to be entertained.
As paid performers, many nineteenth-century flamencos
adapted their tradition to suit foreign tastes. Choreographed
58 E l P a l a c i o
performances put dancers in the spotlight in dazzling costumes,
serenaded by guitarists who often played long solos. As dancers
engaged the audience, the family circle expanded to a semicircle.
The cantaor moved to the background, toning down more
intense aspects of cante to perform more upbeat, applausedriven songs.
As flamenco’s entertainment value solidified in Europe, it
also took hold in the United States. Touring flamenco troupes
and newly arrived flamenco immigrants were soon performing
in New York, Boston, and beyond. In New Mexico, Spanish
classical dance and folkloric traditions emerged at local fairs
and fiestas during the early twentieth-century Spanish colonial
revival, and instruction in Spanish and Mexican dance was
popular into the 1950s. But it wasn’t until the 1960s that a
flamenco performance tradition took root in the state, influenced by such pioneering local icons as Vicente Romero and
María Benítez in northern New Mexico, Clarita García de
Aranda in Albuquerque, and others. This set the stage for today’s
flourishing flamenco scene.
With a concentration of professional performers and students
in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico is now widely
considered the flamenco capital of the US. For native and transplanted performers alike, the history, integrity, and inspiration
of cante is not lost.
“El cante es el flamenco” (the song is flamenco), said Santa
Fe-based dancer and teacher Antonio Granjero, who hails from
Jerez de la Frontera, the cante cradle of Spain. “El cante es todo”
(the song is everything).
“Cante is about soul,” declares internationally acclaimed
native New Mexican dancer and teacher María Benítez. “How
do you teach someone soul?”
E
L GRITO, THE CRY, erupts from deep within, a place of
anguish, desolation, exasperation. The cantaor massages
the melody like a lover, or a warrior, elongating a phrase
then pulling back, manipulating each word with a quiet
caress or a fist to the face.
The cry launches a cante jondo, literally a deep song, a declaration of disappointment, suffering, heartache, death. With every
howl of lament, every wail of rebellion, every painful sigh, the
cantaor leads fellow flamencos across the meandering, often
treacherous, terrain of time, memory, and experience.
Whether a weighty cante jondo such as a seguiriya, or a
lighter, more celebratory cante chico, such as an alegría, cante
is an exercise in improvisation. Indeed, as a musical tradition,
cante bears comparison to American jazz or blues. Rather
than a traditional repertoire, the genre comprises hundreds of
rhythms and forms, which the cantaor shapes into the stories
of the ages. The greatest cantaores plant their songs in personal
experience, weaving words to the pace of their heartbeat,
singing each cante as if for the very first time.
“Once it washes through your soul, your interpretation, it is
your song,” said Albuquerque-based cantaor Vicente Griego,
known as El Cartucho, a native of the northern New Mexico
village of Dixon.
“Cante is a living art,” said cantaor Fernando Barros, a
flamenco historian and composer from Granada, Spain, who
now lives in Santa Fe. “It came out of a certain history, but it
is most important to place it in a social context.”
Flamencologists and ethnomusicologists ardently debate
flamenco history, which has only been documented for the past
200 years. Popular history traces its beginnings to the fifteenthcentury Spanish Inquisition, when Gitanos, Sephardic Jews, and
Muslims who refused to convert to Christianity were expelled
from Spanish lands. While many minorities fled, others hid
in mountain caves throughout Andalucía. In these confined
spaces, in the midst of extreme cultural repression, including
prohibition of traditional Gypsy language and dress, the first
cantaores exclaimed their first gritos. Their distinctive delivery
of their people’s tragic plight seeded the myth of flamenco as a
purely Gypsy tradition of purely Spanish origin.
Historians like Barros, however, acknowledge more diverse
ethnic, cultural, and musical influences to explain today’s
flamenco milieu. Specific Andalusian dance and music styles
were evolving by the second century, when the Roman Empire
overtook the Mediterranean Coast and Iberian Peninsula. The
Byzantines ruled from the fifth to the eighth century, when
Moorish forces established an 800-year Muslim stronghold.
Bands of nomadic Gypsies flooded the region throughout the
Above: Vicente Griego pursued a career as a cantaor in 1992 after attending his first
Festival Flamenco Internacional de Alburquerque. Here he takes the stage as El Cartucho along with Yjastros, the Albuquerque-based flamenco repertory company of
the National Institute of Flamenco. Photo by Pat Berrett.
E l P a l a c i o 59
with vocal compás, a rhythmic,
emotion-driven precision. The
singer treads a tightrope of tension
and release to finally bring his or
her people, and fellow performers,
to redemption.
Redemption came in 1782,
when Spanish king Charles III
issued the Leniency Edict, which
freed the Gypsies to live and work
as they pleased. With permission
to perform in public, flamencos
began singing and dancing at
parties of the Spanish elite, and
eventually adapted their art form
for European audiences. As cante’s
improvisational origins became
Above: Flamenco dancer, choreographer, and teacher Antonio Granjero was born and raised in Jerez de la Frontera in the
more rehearsed, its raw intencante heartland of southern Spain. Cante remains the core inspiration behind Granjero's work in Santa Fe as a performer
sity was seldom heard outside
with the Entreflamenco dance company and as a teacher with the Santa Fe School of Flamenco. Photo by Morgan Smith.
of Gypsy circles, leaving some of
the best cantaores unknown, and
Middle Ages, including East Indians, Arabs, and Africans, who
audiences incomplete in their understanding of flamenco.
blended with local cultures. This multiethnic convergence
The philosophical and political power of cante jondo, however,
inspired a multicultural fusion of musical history, ancient
resonated with the intellectual class. A 1920s movement to
rhythms, traditions, and influences. In time, a distinctive
preserve flamenco’s roots attracted poet Federico García Lorca
musical heritage emerged in Andalucía—particularly in the
and composer Manuel de Falla, who connected to cante jondo
geographical triangle of Cádiz, Sevilla, and Jerez de la Frontera.
as literary and compositional traditions. In Granada in 1922,
With the rise of the Spanish Catholic monarchy, the exiled
the two launched the Primer Concurso de Cante Jondo (First
outcasts clung tightly to their musical traditions. The Gypsies,
Congress of Cante Jondo), bringing together a largely amateur
in particular, forged a unique vocal identity—el cante—that
contingent of cantaores to compete. The event recognized
expressed their cultural pride, love of family, and ache for a
talented local and regional cantaores, and launched a new tradiplace to call home.
tion of cante concursos that continues today in southern Spain.
Perhaps because it came from a pain so deep, a place so inteLater, as members of the avant-garde Generation of 1927,
rior, the voice of the cantaor developed as an uncanny reflection
Lorca, Falla, and others promoted cante and Gypsy culture
of his subject matter, characterized by a profound resonance—
worldwide through writing, theater, classical music, opera, and
guttural, dramatic, operatic.
more. But in 1936, flamenco’s good fortune turned again amidst
“It sounds like sediment,” said Griego. “It can be very bitter,
the onset of the Spanish Civil War, which pitted the right-wing
sweet and rancid at the same time, like raw chocolate.”
Spanish military against the leftist Republican government.
“The voice is beautiful because it’s not perfect,” said Barros.
Lorca’s leftist affiliations prompted his assassination, and Falla
“There’s a certain quality, an elasticity and texture, an essence
fled to Argentina. Again, Gypsy culture was repressed, sending
that gives it authenticity.”
cante jondo underground.
The essence is emotion. Unabashed, indelicate, sarcastic, the
The war ended in 1939. Flamenco’s ups and downs continued
cantaor wears his or her emotions like an ancestral obligation
as the century unfolded; the genre was alternately celebrated,
that is both a burden and a badge of honor. Outbursts of rebeldegraded, sanitized, and popularized. The down times, espelion, ecstasy, and despair lay bare the wounds of persecution
cially, fueled the fiery heart and art of the cantaor.
60 E l P a l a c i o
P
ERHAPS MORE THAN ANY OTHER non-flamenco
artist, Federico García Lorca strived to foster understanding of cante jondo, composing poetry and other
writings around the deep song form and other Gypsy
themes. Cante’s “dark sounds” and mysterious creative
force led him to coin the term duende, which he described as
“something newly created, like a miracle.”
In New Mexico today, performers embrace the creative
enigma of duende, connecting its invisible spirit and emotional
transcendence to the power of cante.
“You have to get into the soul of it, listen to the singer, let go,”
said María Benítez. “When you get a really inspired singer, not
one who sings on the surface, but one who really knows how to
take a bite out of the steak, it can be an out-of-body experience.”
Describing flamenco as “the art of sensation,” Antonio
Granjero anticipates the moment of the cantaor’s first grito, the
elongated ayyyyiiiiiiiieeeeee that sets the tone for the dance. “If
that grito gets inside you, it drives you,” he said. “When the
singer is giving so much that his voice breaks, he can, without
words, determine how well or how poorly you will dance.”
Practically speaking, the cantaor’s craft is stylistically
sophisticated and highly technical. His or her ability to inspire
others to movement, however, is purely instinctive.
“If you aren’t born with the vocal instrument of cante, you
can’t do it,” Granjero said. “You can learn how to sing cante,
but you still won’t know how to sing cante.”
Questions about what is or isn’t “pure” flamenco abound,
including whether or not Spanish Gypsy genetics are required
to be authentic. Cantaores often share Gypsy family bloodlines,
and percentage-wise, the calling is predominantly male. Nonetheless, a legacy of powerful female cantaoras, whom Benítez
described as “hell on wheels,” flows throughout flamenco
history. In practice, a true understanding of cante isn’t limited
to birthright or gender, but requires a shared sensibility that can
be rooted in a variety of experiences.
For example, while both Granjero and Barros were born in
Andalucía, neither was raised in a flamenco family. But both
lived amid Gypsies and other flamencos in communities where
cante and flamenco were integral parts of daily life.
“I was invited to Gypsy homes, where I learned by listening
and doing, by living the fiestas,” recalled Barros, whose largely
self-taught cante practice began in Granada about age fifteen.
“What attracted me to the Gypsies was their willingness to share.”
Granjero remembered his mother cooking to the strains of
cante sung on the radio by such performers as Camarón de la
Isla, whose recordings popularized cante worldwide. “I don’t
have any memory without the sound of cante,” he said. “Half
of my neighbors were Gitanos, but many payos, non-Gypsies,
were also flamencos. Jerez [de la Frontera] is a meeting point,
a great demonstration of how flamencos have mixed. In the
end, cante was part of me.”
At ten, Granjero began studying flamenco dance, leading
to an impressive career in Spain, Europe, and the United
States. He first came to Santa Fe in 1995 to dance with Mariá
Benítez’s Teatro Flamenco. Despite his success as a dancer, he
admitted, “If I could have been a good cantaor, I would have
become a cantaor.
“Dancers, we’re all frustrated singers,” he continued. “When
people ask, ‘What do you envy—money, houses, cars?’—I say,
‘I envy the singer.’”
Right: Taos native María Benitez helped pioneer the art of flamenco in New Mexico
in the 1960s and 1970s, rising to international acclaim for her powerful performances
and a commitment to tradition in perpetuating her craft. Today, she is credited for
mentoring new generations of New Mexican flamencos while bringing countless
Spanish-born performers to work in the state. Photo courtesy María Benitez.
E l P a l a c i o 61
As a New Mexican raised in a family of miners, vaqueros, and
horse traders, cantaor Vicente Griego may seem a contradiction.
But he said, “I grew up around people who are connected to
Spanish Gypsy culture through a long tradition of song.”
Griego first heard cante’s call in 1992, when he attended
the Festival Flamenco Internacional de Alburquerque at the
University of New Mexico. “It was like an ancient voice that I
hadn’t heard in a long time,” he recalled. “The guttural, deep
voice of cante jondo was like the alabados (hymns) of the penitente hermanos (members of the Penitente brotherhood). They
were singing the same song of resistance as the mestizaje (mixed
peoples) of northern New Mexico. I walked straight over to the
circle of singers, and I never left.”
The experience inspired Griego to sign on as a road manager
with the José Greco II Flamenco Dance Company. While touring
the US, Canada, and Latin America with the group, he was
mentored by cantaor Alfonso Gabarri, El Veneno, of Madrid.
Over time, he observed and learned from other flamencos and
immersed himself in the cante anthology preserved by the late
great Gitano cantaor Antonio Mairena.
Griego has never studied in Spain, and the fact that he was not
born there wasn’t an issue for his mentors. “I learned because I
Above: Originally from Granada, cantaor and composer Fernando Barros, center,
now pursues a passionate flamenco vision in Santa Fe, combining a study of
Spanish literature and poetry with flamenco history and ethnomusicology. Here he
performs at the Scottish Rite Temple with oud musician Carlos Lomas, left, and
flamenco guitarist Chuscales. Photo by Allan Ruttenberg.
62 E l P a l a c i o
was born in New Mexico, not in spite of it,” he said. “I was raised
with the same code of honor and respect that they practiced. They
didn’t ask for my passport. They said, ‘Primo [cousin], welcome.’”
Indeed, Griego said, the issue of purity in flamenco in the
modern age is moot. “Flamenco in its purest form was cante off
the tongue of a Gitano on the road from India,” he said. “The
minute someone sung it in Spanish, it became mixed. Why do
we have to keep thinking of a mix as an impurity? The only
thing that is pure is the heart of the artist.”
T
HE BOOMING SLAP of a makeshift cajón, a boxlike
percussion instrument, rumbles through the Museum
of International Folk Art auditorium as secondgraders practice rudimentary flamenco rhythms.
Led by Granjero and Graciela Gonzales, a member
of Granjero’s Entreflamenco dance company and the Santa
Fe School of Flamenco, the education program is part of the
museum’s flamenco exhibition, which highlights cante history,
singers, and sounds. This session introduces students to basic
flamenco history, rhythms, movements, and music. Even as
the students arc their arms, stomp their feet, and practice
palmas, Gonzales reminds them, “The most important thing
is el cante, the song.”
Like Granjero and Gonzales, many New
Mexico flamenco performers also teach. In
1970, María Benítez and her late husband,
Cecilio Benítez, founded the Institute for
Spanish Arts, the first nonprofit flamenco
dance and teaching organization in New
Mexico, which continues to mentor young
performers today. Since the late 1970s,
Albuquerque dancer and teacher Eva Enciñias-Sandoval, daughter of Clarita García de
Aranda, has nurtured her hometown into
another influential flamenco hub. The city is
home to the nonprofit National Institute of
Flamenco and its Conservatory of Flamenco
Arts, and the University of New Mexico
offers the only bachelor’s degree in flamenco
dance in the US.
By all accounts, apart from Spain, New Mexico is a leading
educational center for flamenco. Those who work the stage
and the classroom feel a responsibility to preserve flamenco’s
community-based origins while offering viable performance
options to new generations.
“It’s a delicate balance,” said Benítez, “between the pressure
to entertain and the pressure to be true to the soul and spirit of
flamenco. Our role as educators is to teach our students how to
transmit emotion. Those who can tap into their soul will succeed.”
Although many academic or conservatory settings treat cante,
dance, and guitar as separate studies, Barros and Granjero advocate a model that teaches students the three disciplines simultaneously. This approach puts cante back at the center of the action.
“In Andalucía, cante is still what flamenco is about,” Granjero
said. “Here, dance sells flamenco, but we need to teach students
that cante sustains it.”
For the past five years, Barros, who is also a geologist, has
immersed himself in the “methodology and science” of cante.
As a contemporary cante composer who blends classic Spanish
literature and poetry with flamenco cadences and rhythms,
he encourages innovation. “I have a dream of New Mexico
as a flamenco center where new ideas and new investigations
encourage its preservation as a musical art,” he said.
Griego, who sings for the Albuquerque-based flamenco repertory company Yjastros and tours worldwide as a guest singer
with other groups, also embraces opportunities for innovation.
His group ReVoZo performs “mestizaje flamenco,” a mix of cante
and Latin music. But first and foremost, he said, “My responsibility is to remember what others did before, to continually seek
a deeper understanding of flamenco’s roots. I consider myself a
student until the day I die.”
Benítez advocates collaboration among New Mexico’s
flamenco community in extending the significance of cante.
She also recognizes that cante may never be fully accessible to
contemporary audiences.
“Some people will always be uncomfortable with the
emotion and edginess of cante. They want to know the
meaning of every word, not realizing what they are receiving
is independent of language,” she said. “Cante, at its root, is the
heart and soul of a singer from Spain. There should always be
a little mystery in that.” n
Carmella Padilla writes extensively about intersections in art, culture, and
history in New Mexico and beyond. Her books include The Work of Art: Folk
Artists in the 21st Century; El Rancho de las Golondrinas: Living History in New
Mexico’s La Cienega Valley; and Low ’n Slow: Lowriding in New Mexico. She
recently co-edited A Red Like No Other: How Cochineal Colored the World, the
Opportunities to experience the sounds
and soul of authentic cante abound in
Santa Fe and Albuquerque this summer.
Some highlights:
Cantaor Fernando Barros merges cante, poetry, and literature in
these original performances. Tickets and information: 505-603-0743
or studyflamenco.com.
♦ The Alhambra and the Scottish Rite Temple: Connected by Washington
Irving. July 23, 7 p.m, Scottish Rite Temple, 463 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe.
♦ The Universe of Federico García Lorca: Poetry in Song and the
Arts. Mid-August (call 505-603-0743 for date), 7 p.m, Institute of
American Arts, The Dome, 83 Avan Nu Po Road, Santa Fe.
♦ Cervantes at 400 Years. August 28, 7 p.m, Great Hall, St. John’s
College, 1160 Camino Cruz Blanca, Santa Fe.
María Benítez’s Institute for Spanish Arts presents performances
throughout Santa Fe. Information: 505-473-6334.
♦ Next Generation, June 30–August 28, 2 p.m. Sundays, María Benitez
Cabaret, the Lodge at Santa Fe, 750 N. St. Francis Dr.
♦ 65th Annual Traditional Spanish Market, July 30–31 (visit
spanishcolonial.org for details).
Antonio Granjero and Estefanía Ramírez present the Entreflamenco
2016 summer season, June 30–August 28, performances 8 p.m. nightly
except Sundays, María Benitez Cabaret, the Lodge at Santa Fe, 750 N.
St. Francis Dr. Information: entreflamenco.com or 505-209-1302.
Cantaor Vicente Griego, El Cartucho (vicentegriego.com)
performs at the following venues.
♦ ReVoZo, Rumba Flamenca, live at the grand opening of Tablao
Flamenco, June 12, 6 p.m, Hotel Albuquerque, 800 Rio Grande Blvd.
NW, Albuquerque. Information: nationalinstituteofflamenco.org.
♦ Festival Flamenco Internacional de Alburquerque, June 11–18,
Albuquerque. Information: ffi29.org or nationalinstituteofflamenco.org.
♦ EmiArte Flamenco, June 27–July 3, 8 p.m. nightly, Skylight Santa Fe,
139 W. San Francisco St. Information: emiarteflamenco.com or
Skylight Santa Fe, 505-982-0775.
companion publication to the recent Museum of International Folk Art exhibition
♦ Yjastros Cabaret Flamenco with tapas, July 7–August 21, 7 p.m. nightly
The Red That Colored the World. She is a recipient of the Governor’s Award for
except Tuesdays, El Farol, 808 Canyon Rd, Santa Fe. Information:
Excellence in the Arts and a frequent contributor to El Palacio.
nationalinstituteofflamenco.org or El Farol, 505-983-9912.
E l P a l a c i o 63