Arts
Flamenco’s Punjab connect
Flamenco, Spain’s vibrant folk dance, has strong Indian roots. It is believed to have been created by expatriate people of Jat origin
Hugh & Colleen Gantzer

PJOs is our term for those wonderful people of Jat origin. These ones have lived in Spain for many generations. We met them one night in a cave off the steep streets of the Sacromonte district of Granada. There we discovered that one of the owners of the Cuevas los Tarantos, Zambra Gitana had a very Indian name, Maya. We told her so. Looking at her and her companion, we recalled that some anthropologists believed that our Jats originated from Central and West Asia: but that is another story. Her partner was a man who could have passed as a trader in Chandigarh. He said, according to their tradition, his people had migrated from north India. Then he added, "Perhaps when you see our flamenco, you may find a connection. Please go into the cueva. It’s almost full."

A poster in the museum showcases the regality of a dancer’s costume

It was. At the far end was a stage. To our left, against the curved wall of the cave, was a group of visiting Japanese girls in blouses and skirts, sitting with prim demureness. On our right was a group of American senior citizens shepherded by their guide, Jose. He told his flock "No flashes: they disturb the performers. Slightly out-of-focus pictures capture the atmosphere excellently! The dancers will pose for you, later".

He cleared his throat and added an explanation in his soft, Spanish-lisped, accent. "The flamenco, as I have told some of you, is our famous folk music and dance from this southern region, Andalusia". He pronounced it Anda-loo-thia.

It includes singing called cante, guitar playing which is termed toque, dance or baile and the very rhythmic palmas, hand clapping. Male dancers are called bailaor, or bailaora if they are women. The singer is a cantaor, the beats are compas. And there are 50 distinct styles, or palos, of flamenco."

We scribbled hurriedly in our notebooks. The illumination in the cave brightened as the musicians and accompanists took their seats on the chairs closest to the stage on the right. Jose, who had assumed the role of master of ceremonies, intoned "So now let the performance begin`85."

The audience watches a flamenco performance in a cave. Photos by the writers

And what a performance... We couldn’t understand the words of the song but we had been told what it expressed: it was the full-throated lament of a persecuted people, refusing to be broken. The slaves of the American south had poured their anguish into similar songs like "Old Man River" and the less familiar "Old Black Joe". Hints of the origins of flamenco began to swirl in our minds. When the singer left the stage, a bailaora dancer entered the spotlight. She wore a full, ruffled, skirt with a body-hugging top. Her bare arms were raised above her head, her hands clasped black castanets. Slowly her feet began to move rat-tat-tatting a beat on the hard floor, accompanied by the castanets and the compulsive hand-clapping, with the guitar driving her movements. On a night such as this, under the full moon and stars of the desert, we had seen Rajasthan’s kaalbelia dancers, in flaring, skirts and form-fitting blouses dance to the accompaniment of stringed instruments and castanets. The similarity was striking.

Striking off stage too! The stylish flamenco dancers exude charm

Flamenco has been embraced by the gypsies of Spain

The lone bailaora stepped off the stage, danced in the broad aisle between the seats, and retired to make way for another and yet another. Their smouldering performances were still with us when we visited another Andalusian town, Saville. Here the flamenco was a vibrant duet between a bailor and a bailaora. It was also, clearly, a contest between the sexes, their gazes locked, their movements responsive to each other, challenge answered by defiance, as intense as two fiercely circling predators urged on by full-throated cries of "Ole!"

We decided to move on to find out more about this extraordinary dance.

In another part of Saville, there is a flamenco research centre. While dedicated students tapped their heels and clapped their hands, under an instructor, we spoke to a director of the institute. He said though the flamenco has been embraced by the gypsies of Spain, it is not essentially a gypsy dance form. We do not agree. Flamenco could have absorbed later influences from the Greeks and Hebrews, possibly Islam because Spain was a Muslim nation for many generations.

Names, however, have a persistent longevity: they stubbornly keep revealing their ancient origins. According to documents given to us by the centre, the flamenco guitar is called a bejani, a likely derivation from our own baja. The Spanish gypsy word for hair is bal, hunger is bukh. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary of the authoritative Encyclopaedia Britannica Company, gypsy is defined as a member of a traditionally itinerant people who originated in northern India.

Spain’s most famous folk dance has strong Indian roots. The flamenco was created by expatriate people of Jat origin.

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