Wow, where to start? First, take all of your knowledge about contemporary singing, dancing, and guitar playing and throw it out of the window. Yes, Flamenco is a specific type of dance in the truest form of the word, but seeing the Flamenco performance in the heart of its birthplace in Sevilla of Andalucía, Spain, I now understand that it is much more than moving to the beat.

In the basement of the Flamenco Dance Museum, founded by the 1992 Olympic Flamenco dancer Cristina Hoyos, there lies a long stone hallway with an arched ceiling. Filled with almost two-thirds chairs, I caught myself wondering where the stage would be for the performance. As people quieted and the lights dimmed, out of the corner of the tomb looking room came three men, dressed in all black, who sat down in chairs with their backs against the wall. One armed with a guitar, it soon came to everyone’s attention the two others were the singers for the night. To warm up, the trio began with giving us a taste of the music we would be listening to the rest of this journey. Without recognizing any of the words (yes, even with years of studying Spanish in high school), I immediately heard the sharpness of their voices with the most distinctive twang. Pronouncing very few actual words, I began to recognize these singers were portraying emotion through the tons of emotional grunts to be compared to a smoker’s yoga “humm.” Continually locking eyes, it was clear the strum of the guitar and the pulse of the singer’s voices were very much in sync with zero mistakes.

Following the singer/guitarist warm up was a set of four Flamencos. First, two women and a man. Second, a solo by one of the women. Third, a solo by the other woman, and finally, the finale by all three dancers again. Four performances. Four rhythms. Four improvisations. Four emotions. The blend that is the voice, the guitar, and the movement of the dancer is unlike anything I have ever seen. Yes, I have heard live singing, live guitar, live dancing, but nothing with such precision and uniformity. Lead by the dancer him or herself, each performance was packed with the universal language of feeling and emotion. Without saying anything and letting her feet and arms and facial expression do the talking, the second solo began with the tap of the foot.

Immediately the audience felt the theme of the strangle of love and hatred simply by the crescendos and decrescendos of the ear-piercing crack of her feet on the wood floor and the following intensity of the delicate growls of the singers and hard strums of the guitar. Dressed in a long red decadent dress, her moves included the swaying and lifting of her dress to and away from a fixed point she glared at in the corner of the room. It was clear that point was “him.” Confronting the point with intensity, sometimes with shyness, and even hesitation, the guitarist, and singers encouraged her no matter the movement. I say this in all seriousness, I have no idea how this woman’s knees are not blown out. Not only is she constantly moving her legs in intricate ways that give way to intriguing body positions, her rhythm is mostly kept by the tap of her foot. The word tap is an understatement, really. Interestingly enough, a testament to the magic that is Flamenco is exactly the blending of these ear-piercing sounds to the flow of emotion.

When it was all said and done and the dancer dressed in red took her last step the singer his last hum and the guitarist his last strum, I began to think this was more than a song, but yes, an experience, a journey lead by people I do not know in a country I am not from. This is something that cannot be captured by pictures or words, but something you truly have to see for yourself...or at least search it on YouTube.