Flamenco

Last night we went to El Tablao de Moreria, the oldest and most famous Flamenco restaurant in Madrid and it was fantastic.

We arrived for our 8:00 reservation just a few minutes early and waited till the restaurant opened it’s doors. We were seated and given a menu.  When we made the reservation we had made it for dinner and the show, and paid for it then.  It sounded like dinner and show were included in one price, and for 38 euro a piece, that seemed like a nice dinner and show, it translates to about $104 for the both of us.  But when we got there we found that wasn’t the case – we had only paid for the show, and that was the cheaper part.  

Dinner was delicious.  For starters we had soup: Lee ordered gazpacho and I had cream of mushroom.  But picture a small bowl of soup that cost $20 and you will know it was excellent.  (We actually traded soups because they were super good – being married is great.) For dinner Lee got salmon, and I steak; both were served with potatoes and I’m sure I’ve never had better steak in all my existence.

Lastly there was a chocolate dessert with ice cream, that tasted just like my grandma’s homemade ice cream.  Oh, it was all so good.  But really, though it was probably the fanciest restaurant I’ve ever been to, I didn’t take pictures of the food and we were really there to see the dance.

The most amazing part of the dance is the sound.  I could not believe the amount of noise that came off that stage.  The show had so much “tap-dancing”, but it was so much more than tap dancing since they had no taps and it was so much louder, faster and breath-taking.  The hand clapping and the vocal that could overcome all the noise.  Amazing.

The stage seems tiny for a dance floor, it is hard to imagine one single dancer there, but they always have at least 7 people on the stage.  A flamenco troupe is made up of three guitars, three singers, three  chorus dancers, and two main dancers, male and female.

We heard some vocal solos, some guitar solos, some dance solos, and many combinations of all.  The dance uses everything it has space to use – the dresses, the shawls, the castanas, the shoes, hands, and body movement – it was all needed to make Flamenco.

 

 

 

Corral de la Moreria: Flamenco Dance Ensemble with Castanas

We almost don’t want to post the video because it does no justice to the dance at all. The music is provided by who you see on stage.  Three guitarists doing amazing fingerwork, three vocalists that have powerful voices, hand clapping, feet stamping, shoes clacking, the castanas (clackers in hands) and all in all I can’t believe the audio is so quiet.  So, I’m sorry that this shows nothing of the experience, but it does show a bit of the dance.

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