Sevillanas - Always there at the Seville Fair

Now that the April Fair (Feria de Abril) in Seville is ceremonially closed, I take my time to say a couple of words about one of the most important characteristics of it - folk art as expressed in singing and dancing. 

The gate of the Fair at night (Photo by Antonio de Juico)

At the Seville Fair, it's Sevillanas. What is it? My goodness, I most certainly have some difficulties in defining what the Sevillanas is! It's a real Andalusian thing, that's in the first place. And it has a lot to do with expressing oneself in the complexity of music. But it's not just melody and lyrics. Neither can I simply say that it's flamenco, a style you have probably heard of.

It's telling the stories of people (pueblo) through music or verse, or both music and verse. It can be a rhymed verse recited, but more often it's music performed together with the verse sung. It's the music you take part in:

• playing the guitar or other “folk” instruments; 
• singing or dancing a melody overheard; 
• creating additional background sounds to contribute to harmony; 
• cheering the musicians, singers and dancers.

Snapshot from the Carlos Saura's "Sevillanas"

Andalusia consists of the eight southern provinces of Spain. It is the largest region of the peninsula both geographically and in population. Famous for its fortified wine, bullfights, and picturesque white villages, this region is also home of the famous flamenco and the popular four-line verse known as the copla. Most flamenco lyrics (for singing, cante) occur in this form, especially the Sevillanas, but coplas are also composed for unaccompanied oral recitations and for spoken performances. Andalusians are well known for their wild love for song and dance, but, as the legendary researcher David D. Gilmore says in his 1986 article on Andalusian oral poetry (see the references), when it comes to oral art, they are indeed proud public performers, glorying in their talent for expressing deep emotion through imaginative wordplay.

All the oral creations are composed for speaking or singing before large groups. The most popular of the flamenco lyrics, the Sevillana verses (copla), are highly mannered and predictable. As an illustration, fully half of the songs collected by Gilmore contained pointed material about women - mothers, wives, daughters, fiancées, and mothers-in-law. Among many, the following is an example of the Sevillana verses about unequal relationship between an upper-class seducer (señorito), depicted as a rapacious bird of prey, and his victim, an innocent working class sewing girl with a strong erotic appeal. This copla is taken from another article written by Gilmore in 1983 on Andalusian oral literature (see the references).

Era como una paloma Tan fina y tan distinguida Su pelo con el aroma De rosa de Alejandría. Pero en el pueblo sabían Que sus ojos le seguían Y las gentes comentaban: Pobrecita la paloma Si el aguila la alcanzara. Como una ave de rapiña Que a su victima acechaba Sorprendiéndola en el vuelo Cuando mas se confiaba. Señorito rodeado de Criados mal pagados Que te alaban falsamente Dios te va a mandar Un castigo para vengar A esa inocente.

She was like a dove, So elegant and pure. Her hair had the fragrance Of subtlest damask roses. But her fellow townsmen knew That his cruel eyes were on her; And they said: The poor dove is lost If the eagle overtakes her. Like a bird of prey Which stalks its victim, Surprising her in flight, When most unsuspecting, Señorito, surrounded by Badly paid servants Who falsely flatter, God himself will punish you To avenge This innocent girl.

There is an absolutely excellent book on the cante (sadly not in English), expertly written by a Cordovan poet, Ricardo Molina, and a flamenco singer from Mairena del Alcor, Antonio Mairena (see the references).

Molina and Mairena tell us that the Sevillanas is not a Gypsy song (Cante Jondo), but an archetype of the Andalusian flamenco-like folk song (Cante Flamenco), and is thus a historically accurate folkloric and regional song in its essence, tuned by some Gypsy touch that is, in some cases, even more pronounced. The Sevillanas was there in the public domain already before the 19^th century. It hasn't evolved in isolation, in privacy at homes (casa), as compared to the Gypsy song, but has always been considered a public heritage. Its sole purpose has always been to accompany the dance. So, the Sevillanas is both sung and danced, and it's sung and danced by Andalusian people in a wide variety of ways.

The Sevillanas is a must-sing at fairs and pilgrimages (e.g. La Romería) in Andalusia. It's not limited to Seville and Sevillians, but loved community-wide thanks to its joyful ease and rhythm. That what distinguishes the Sevillanas, is its catching grace together with its lightness, liveliness and flexibility. The Sevillanas is performed in small groups supported by the appropriate social tools, including:

• alcoholic drinks (such as wine, anisette, whisky or something of the kind) to be had so as to be tuned in, so to speak, and share the same emotional temperature;
• clapping (palmas) that serves a musical rhythmic function, being often mixed with finger snapping (pitos), guitar body tapping (percusiones en la madera de la guitarra), foot tapping (zapateo, taconeo),  or table/chair beating (golpeo de mesa, golpeo de silla) either with the flat hand or knuckles; and,
• cheering (jaleo) that serves an auditory stimulation function comprising a series of spontaneous shouts of admiration, like ¡Je!, ¡Ezo!, ¡Ezo é! (That's right!), ¡Arza!, ¡Olé!

Gilmore adds to the latter that the pleasure in the release of feelings communicated by the many shouts in the audience can also be in the way of approval and agreement: ¡Verdad! (How true!), ¡Así se canta! (That's the way to put it!), and so on.

Katherine Thomas, an award winning flamenco artist graduated from the University of California with a Master of Arts in Dance, suggests a good book by Ana Maria Durand-Viel, "La Sevillana" (1983), to learn about the history of the Sevillanas, its terminology, the phrasing of dance sequences, and the instrumentation for the dance (see the references). In that book the performance styles and contexts are also exploited, including the festival version of the dance performed during La Romería, the spring pilgrimage made from Seville to Rocío each year. According to Thomas, Durand-Viel's work reflects earlier excellent books on Spanish dance, notably La Meri's 1948 English-language "Spanish dancing", which includes classifications and descriptions of Spanish and flamenco dance styles, and Teresa Martinez de la Peña's 1969 "Teoría y Practica del Baile Flamenco", which lists and categorizes flamenco dances, defines and describes the sections of flamenco dance, and describes how to approach a performance impressionistically.

And, as referred to in one of the previous posts, there are several documentaries that focus on cultural phenomena, including those on flamenco, such as a 52-minute film about the Sevillanas directed by Carlos Saura (studied by Manuel Trenzado Romero). It's available on DVD (PAL), and partly on YouTube.

DVD cover of the Carlos Saura's "Sevillanas"