Do you love dancing por tangos?

Today I’m going to invite you to dance along as María Terremoto sings (and dances) some amazing tangos

Here’s the first letra you’ll hear her sing in the video below:

Tangos

Traditional

La Virgen de Los Remedios
tiene su cara morena
y el niño que esta en sus brazos
más blanco que la azucena
Ay mare ay mare

Our Lady of Remedies
has a dark face
and the child in her arms
is whiter than a lily
Oh mother, oh mother

I apologize for the poor video quality. I took this on the first night of the Flamenco Tour to Jerez. It was dark, and we were in the back after scurrying over following our Opening Night Tapas Reception. But I couldn’t not record this for you. Her singing and these letras are simply TOO good not to share!

Responding to the Cante

I talk a lot about dancing with the cante around here.

It’s essential in flamenco, and it’s a huge part of how flamenco is taught in Jerez.

In order to dance well with the cante we need to hear where the changes and resolutions are so that we can reflect those changes with our movements and sounds.

The guitar, palmas, and jaleos can help us to hear the caídas (resolutions) in the cante as they all respond to the singing.

Ultimately we want to be able to hear the caídas without these aides, but for now, use them to help if you need.

Here’s an activity you can do from home to become better at responding to the cante.

An Activity for You

PART ONE:

1. Play palmas along with the video above.

2. Respond to the changes in the cante by doing remates with your palmas. (If you’re having a difficult time hearing where to do this, focus in on the the guitar, palmas, and jaleos, and use their cues to guide you.)

PART TWO:

Now that you’ve become familiar with the letras, it’s time to dance!

1. Think of some marcajes (marking steps) you know por tangos.

2. Now thing of a remate or two. (This is mainly a listening activity so the steps don’t need to be complicated.)

3. Play the video again and dance along doing various marcajes.

4. When you hear a caída in the cante or a remate on the guitar do a remate in your dancing.

You’ve seen activities like this around here before, and you can expect to see more. Because hearing and responding to the changes is an essential skil for any flamenco or flamenca.

You probably heard María sing some familiar letras in the video. Perhaps they sounded a bit different than you’re used to. This is good! We don’t want to anticipate that a letra we know will always sound the same. Because it won’t. That’s why we want to do activities like this, to help us respond in the moment.

You can repeat this activity when listening to just about any flamenco song.

• Hearing the caída is step one.

• Marking it with palmas is step two.

• Reflecting that in your dancing is step three.

The more you do this. The more comfortable you’ll become, and the easier it will be to improvise and respond to the cante.

We've been working on this in both Beginning & Intermediate/Advanced Baile on Saturdays and we'll do a lot of this in Por Fiesta Flamenco coming up on Wednesdays in January!!

How Did It Go?

Did you love listening to María sing as much as I did? Did she make you want to get up and dance? Did you get up and dance and do the activity? What did you learn? Let me know in the comments below.

Más Letras from the Video

She sings this one two minutes in.

And this one at four minutes ten seconds.

This one at seven minutes thirty seconds,

And this one about eight minutes in.