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  #41  
Unread 05-07-2005, 12:06 PM
Ann White Ann White is offline
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Christy,

The Del Rio rendition of Crying, and her description ("I remember the first time I sang it in Spanish. The lyrics resonated in my throat and for the first time in my singing career, I felt one with a song. It made me cry with sadness & joy because I had found a gem I could call my own.") sounds alot like fado to me.

And your poem by Jennifer may be the best way to describe something as elusive and individual as duende: by showing not telling.
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  #42  
Unread 05-08-2005, 11:51 AM
thompson thompson is offline
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Ann--

Yes, Dolores Agujetas is of that same Jerez family. The reason she distances herself from what she calls "flamenco" is that modern flamenco, under the influence of Paco de Lucia, has incorporated elements of jazz and has lost much of the depth of cante jondo. Real flamenco seems largely dead right now, but these things go in cycles. There are a few, like El Chocolate and Agujetas, who are capable of cante jondo.

I don't believe that duende is something that someone "has." I don't believe it has much at all to do with poetry, in fact, but that's just my take.

There's a story about Fernanda de Utrera, considered by most to be the greatest of the modern cantaoras. There was to be a juerga (party) that most expected to last through several days of drinking and singing and playing. The juerga started with a siguiryas (perhaps the deepest of the deep songs), and soon everyone was crying because of the duende. It had happened. The juerga was over after 5 minutes.

If you have access to Carlos Saura's film _Flamenco_, you'll see much of what Dolores Agujetas dismisses as "Flamenco for Americans." But you'll also hear Agujetas sing with great depth. That may not be an indication of duende--I've never been around when it happened--but it is real cante jondo.

I really don't think duende has anything to do with anything outside Andalusian Gitano culture.

Bill
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  #43  
Unread 05-08-2005, 02:29 PM
Janet Kenny Janet Kenny is offline
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Ann said:
About fado - my reason for introducing it was not as a genre but as an example of pure emotion contained in a form. It's slightly similar to duende. Google "Misia" if you have a minute. Fado is about portraying emotion through the voice.

Ann,
Fado means "fate" I think. There is an acceptance of suffering in fado which is the opposite of duende. I have always loved fado but when I listened to the greatest fado singer, the late Amalia Rodruiges, she seemed a mile away from duende. Nostalgia seemed the dominating emotion and duende is NOW!
Fado
Janet
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  #44  
Unread 05-10-2005, 04:32 PM
Ann White Ann White is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by thompson:

I don't believe that duende is something that someone "has." I don't believe it has much at all to do with poetry, in fact, but that's just my take.

I really don't think duende has anything to do with anything outside Andalusian Gitano culture.
Bill,
I can see where that makes sense, in a regional sense. Then again, it seems that amything human can be invoked by other humans. But maybe I'm just not getting it.

I got Lorca's Collected Poems (trans Mauer) and have been reading thru them. They don't give me answers. I keep thinking duende is preverbal, inexpressive and requires translation into a solid form. I may be way off base too - Lorca's In Search of Duende hasn't arrived.

Ann
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  #45  
Unread 05-10-2005, 07:21 PM
albert geiser albert geiser is offline
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Ann-

From Lorca:

"...The duende does not come at all until he sees that death is possible. The duende must know beforehead that he can serenade death's house..."

So the duende is sought in the sense that the poet invites the duende. Lorca speaks of "the duende" and characterizes it as if it were a being, so I'm going with the defintion of duende as related to a kind of demon. Lorca never says the poet actively pursues the duende, but he says the duende arrives. As I understand Lorca's lecture the poet makes the conditions right for the duende, seeks its arrival.

Lorca says: "We know the roads where we can search for God... But there are neither maps nor exercises to help us find the duende..." The implication is that the duende is found kind of the way a medium seeks the spirit world.
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  #46  
Unread 05-10-2005, 08:13 PM
thompson thompson is offline
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Ann,

Here's a response from someone who knows much more about this than I do:

"I think the Lorca description of Duende in his famous essay is half crap. When a light piece of Bach in the essay is described as having duende, that's BS. Duende is the dark spirit that is opposite across the room to ange'
(angel). "Whatever has black sounds has duende" is another line from the essay that seems almost true.

I think in all my years of flamenco I have experienced duende no more than three or so times. It was a transfiguring feeling about a flamenco "performance', not knowing whether to laugh or cry, but crying involuntarily . Nothing I have felt like it."

Jacinto
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  #47  
Unread 05-10-2005, 08:37 PM
Patricia A. Marsh Patricia A. Marsh is offline
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There's a flamenco website where "duende" is described as:
"The trance like fixation, or haunting feeling one may experience while enjoying a flamenco performance. Duende is an inner spirit, which is released as a result of a performer's intense emotional involvement with the music, song and dance. Read the complete essay."

<a href=http://herso.freeservers.com>http://herso.freeservers.com</a>

[This message has been edited by Patricia A. Marsh (edited May 10, 2005).]
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  #48  
Unread 05-11-2005, 07:30 AM
Robin-Kemp Robin-Kemp is offline
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Originally posted by thompson:

"I don't believe that duende is something that someone "has." I don't believe it has much at all to do with poetry, in fact, but that's just my take."

"I really don't think duende has anything to do with anything outside Andalusian Gitano culture."

Duende has someone. Someone can't ever have duende.

We are the weak radios through which duende occasionally blasts. We can wiggle the antennae and move the line-of-sight obstacles and wind more coils around the magnet, but duende will not necessarily broadcast loud and clear through our tinny little speakers.

Spanish (and with it, Andalusian) culture had a way of colonizing itself. The Caribbean is riddled with duende. The Gulf Coast harbors pockets of duende.

An aside: Anyone else read Ornament of the World? Therein observe the deep roots of duende.

Robin
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  #49  
Unread 05-24-2005, 07:01 PM
Ann White Ann White is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by thompson:
Ann,

Here's a response from someone who knows much more about this than I do:

"I think the Lorca description of Duende in his famous essay is half crap. When a light piece of Bach in the essay is described as having duende, that's BS. Duende is the dark spirit that is opposite across the room to ange'
(angel). "Whatever has black sounds has duende" is another line from the essay that seems almost true.

I think in all my years of flamenco I have experienced duende no more than three or so times. It was a transfiguring feeling about a flamenco "performance', not knowing whether to laugh or cry, but crying involuntarily . Nothing I have felt like it."

Jacinto
Lorca's Collected Poems & his little book In Search of Duende are jumping off points & Lorca doesn't own the word or its definition. Probably my intuition that duende and fado are related is the closest I'll come to feeling what duende is about. Lorca says something in his book about the Andalusians "identifying" duende in a performer. That's not the same as defining the word, which as your friend Jacinto points out, can't be a definitive act. The identification is about an emotional response. When that's evoked, when that particular chord is struck, then the listener can say: "That is duende." So yes, I believe it's beyond a formal construction, and it cannot be translated neatly into words. It's all about comparison and searches for models. But because duende is equally about something evocative in the listener or the recipient and not strictly a quantity or quality appearing in the siguiriya or the poet, then it's possible that for some people, Bach produced such an emotional event. It's all relative.

This journey was / is a fascinating one for me. I agree that history holds some answers and although I didn't read the book Robin mentioned, I did use it as another diving board, this time looking at the history of the gypsy. Fascinating the way things stream out from one point into so many seemingly divergent trails, just to return to a common source. The gypsy originated from India and Persia, where they were hounded out in the early 1400s by Tamerlane, an Asiatic/Persian/Mongul military leader whose stretch of conquered territory exceeded that of Genghis Khan. What's so fascinating is the link between the gypsies, the Panjabi root of their language, Indian chants/mantras, the singing poetry of Rumi and the adoption of deep song by the gypsies (or Roma) . I see this wonderful connection - a little superficial right now but bound together by language as song. And a reading of the continuously-persecuted history of the Romani will instantly make known why they were drawn to the pervading sadness of deep song.

Ann
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