How to dance flamenco, flamenco travel in Spain, flamenco dance students and their experiences, interviews with flamenco artists, translations of flamenco letras (songs) from Spanish to English
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Barrio San Miguel
Now that you have an idea of what it's like to spend a day in Jerez, here’s a peek at our neighborhood.
We stay in el Barrio de San Miguel, also known as La Plazuela, one of the two main flamenco neighborhoods of Jerez, where the scent of flamenco is everywhere.
Flamenco singer Manuel Moneo passed away earlier this week.
The huge mural of him that you see in the picture above was steps away from where we study bulerías on the Flamenco Tour to Jerez in the historic flamenco neighborhood of San Miguel. (You can see a video on the making of the mural below.)
Manuel was known for his siguiriyas and soleá. Here you can watch him singing martinete in Carlos Saura's movie, Flamenco.
~ Manuel Moneo
He talks about this concept in the video interview below where you'll not only hear some of his story but also learn about the importance of el Barrio San Miguel, La Plazuela, to flamenco.
But first, let's listen to him sing por bulerías (con mucho arte). Here is one of the letras you'll hear:
A couple of weeks ago you saw Rocío Carrasco dancing bulerías. See another video of her today, this time singing the letra below:
Bulerías
Yo me acuerdo noche y día
De mi barrio San Miguel
Y yo canto por bulerías
Por bulerías de mi Jerez
Today's post is not a flamenco letra; it is an acrostic that was written for Mercedes Ruíz when she was about eleven years old. It is written on this photo that hangs on a wall at the Peña Los Cernícalos.
Mercedes
Es, Jerez de la Frontera,
Rica sal de Andalucía,
Conquistando a España entera,
Ella se llama altanera,
Dichosa, como su abuela,
Este nombre de solera
Soy niña de la Plazuela.
Last week you heard the letra that we studied with José 'El Mijita' on the Flamenco Tour to Jerez. This week I want to share with you the coletilla we worked on. (Along with another video snippet)
It is a mouthful.
Not. easy. to. sing.
Getting all of the words in the last line out of your mouth, number one, in compás, number two, while playing palmas, number three, and following the melody, number four.
Like I said, not easy to do. But we sure had fun trying.
See for yourself in the following video snippets
Pequeña.
Y por fiesta.
It was Ani who said that. Ana María López. She said it on a Monday morning in Jerez.
We had been there for a little over a week I guess.
And on this particular Monday morning the ladies had gone to bulerías class ahead of me.
I guess you could say I was kind of consumed with fear during my time in Jerez. I did things anyway, but I also didn't do things. Below is an excerpt (with some side notes) written during my first week alone there. For those who are new to this blog, I had been in Jerez a couple of weeks before for the Festival. After a brief trip to Portugal, I headed back. I arrived on Friday the 25th and began my search for classes.
Prior to leaving for Spain I knew who I wanted to take from and had names of studios and phone numbers; I even had an idea of when some of the classes were offered. Sí! I had done my research, I promise, as best as I could from Portland, Oregon...I had to for the RACC grant. And during the festival I got an idea of where the studios were located. But I had yet to figure out the class times. Could I have done more to determine this earlier in the month? Perhaps. But figuring out where and when things happen in that town is not as easy as one might think…
![Part 13: (Bonus) Our Neighborhood [A Day in the Life of a Student on the Flamenco Tour to Jerez]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/568079e7bfe873f15c115eee/1578124556461-57U075EZ844MD102837Z/Lola.jpg)
