15/06/2022
Flamenco and the 1922 Woodstock of Spain
Over two nights 100 years ago, a single event transformed one of Spain's national art forms. Brendan Sainsbury explores how the Concurso de Cante Jondo created a myth that endures today.
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One hundred years ago, on a sultry June evening in 1922, a couple of days before the moveable Spanish feast of Corpus Christi, a stream of colourfully attired guests began to file expectantly into the Plaza de los Aljibes in Granada's Alhambra. They were arriving for the Concurso de Cante Jondo, a flamenco singing contest that had been organised by the Andalucian composer Manuel de Falla in collaboration with a small circle of artistic luminaries that included the playwright and poet Federico García Lorca and the artist Ignacio Zuloaga.
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It would have been clear to anyone in the audience that night that they were about to witness something historic and out of the ordinary. The plaza had been decorated with ornate tapestries and aromatic plants. Antique lamps glowed against the rust-red walls of the Alcazaba, the Alhambra's 13th-Century fort, while down below, amid the slender cypress trees, women dressed in lace-trimmed shawls mingled with men in velvet jackets and Andalucian hats as they waited for the performances to start.
