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Friday, January 22, 2010

el duende


El duende is the spirit of evocation.
it comes from inside as physical/emotional response to music.
it is what gives you chills, makes you smile, or cry as a bodily reaction to an artistic performance that is particularly expressive. Folk music, especially Flamenco, tends to embody an authenticity that comes from a people whose culture is enriched by diaspora and hardship; vox populi, the human condition of joys and sorrows. It is thus as universal in its meaning as it is immensely personal and culturally contextual by its nature.
Federico Garcia Lorca wrote "the duende, then, is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought. The duende is not in the throat; the duende climbs up inside you, from the soles of the feet. It is not a question of ability, but of true, living style, of blood, of the most ancient culture, of spontaneous creation. Everything that has black sounds in it, has duende. All arts are capable of duende, but where it finds greatest range, naturally, is in music, dance, and spoken poetry, for these arts require a living body to interpret them, being forms that are born, die, and open their contours against an exact present."

harmonically connecting points of clarity.

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