Japanese flamenco is a thing
At our local flamenco bar some lovely Japanese ladies were putting on a show of the local craft. Now, if you've ever seen flamenco you'll know that it's the dancing-and-singing equivalent of punching a baboon in the face and then attempting to make love to it. In style, passion and intent it couldn't be further away from the gentle perfection of buyō, the dancing to which geisha hypnotically move accompanied by the gentle plucking of the three-stringed sangen. To ask a Japanese person to do flamenco is like asking a concert violinist to take up mixed martial arts.
Yet here we were, watching one of the funkiest clashes of culture I can imagine. Graceful Japanese women wearing kimonos accessorised with a little flamenco flair here and there giving their all, in the capable hands of a local guitarist. In the bar with us were mostly friends and family of the performers, filming the show, so it was apparent that this was a kind of graduation event put on by one of the local flamenco schools.
The dancers were having an absolute blast, smiling ear to ear and chuckling to one another throughout. Of course, this flies in the face of flamenco in general. When you perform flamenco you're supposed to be furious, like you're ready to rip the head off a donkey and club your husband to death with it, then stomp on his albondigas. Indeed, a couple of times during the show the teachers came on stage to reset the passion levels a little and to remind us that everything was as it should be.
The ladies did the bulk of their singing in Japanese, too. Not that I understood the lyrics, but there's something about a song that decries the heart-rending despair of (presumably) losing one's husband in a tragic baboon-loving accident being sung in a delicate Japanese lilt that makes your shins twitch. And then there was the juxtaposition of the movements. These women moved like geisha but were doing flamenco gestures, claps and stomps. Or possibly vice versa.
Four glasses of manzanilla later and the show was over (approx 30 minutes as measured in Andalusian time). We mingled a little in the tiny bar but neither my Spanish nor Japanese is good enough to get to the bottom of how and why a dozen Japanese women found each other in southern Spain and decided that flamenco sounded like a good idea. It was only later I recollected that there were no Japanese men involved – not even in the audience – which compounded the mystery.
To complete the cultural coming together, tonight we're off to a tapas bar that makes Japanese food. We're expecting furious culinary perfection in a calming environment. Or possibly vice versa.
