Epilogue-A Personal Journey to Flamenco

Epilogue

.......bit by bit the walls of the ego recede,
and your life becomes increasingly
merged in the universal life.
-Bertrand Russell-

Not long before Gohk made a comment on Manolo Caracol singing siguiriya, a song form of flamenco: the cantaora seemed as if he were 'leaving in each line of the verse a piece of his soul.' This literary work under way, Gohk said, reminded him of the siguiriya he had heard, and he added that sometimes he felt as if he were leaving every bit of himself.

And I have sensed that Gohk was undergoing a significant change in his mind. He began to travel as an aesthetic digger with his concern concentrated only on how to writer arts and poetic proses . When he made a trip to Spain, he kept the same subject, too. He travelled through Andalusia in Spain, thinking of the same subject, this time with flamenco added to it. Then since his recent trip to Siberia, he was thought to get more and more religious and philosophical in thinking beyond art.

Earlier he used to say, ¡® No art without intoxication.¡¯ these days he was thought to get more and more lost in meditation on the other subject beyond art, particularly in relation with life and religion. In his recent emails to me revealing his new plan to write his journey to Siberia I read twice a Rusian tribe's remark he loves: it is only upon Baikal in Autumn that a man learns to pray from his heart.

Gohk would ponder over something to write, listen to flamenco cante of Manolo Caracol and Cello Sonata with no accompaniment of Bach . Because, he said, they would kill his inner pain. H is thought to get more conscious of a pain alive in his heart. According to him, he has lived with the pain, a half of which was caused by himself ,the other half by his late father he loved.

Once He said to me that the pain is what for him never to get free of. He seemed to accept it as a part of his life. It seems that to him the pain is what he should keep to himself, sharing with nobody. So he just wants to get it forgotten from moment to moment through his own way- subduing an impulse to go to alien lands beyond the sea line or to write.

Praying for Gohk's recovery soon,

In Seoul, South Korea
Joon Kim
Oct. 2008

* Glossary

alegrias_ a song form of flamenco:
Cadiz, together with Jerez and Seville, was the center of cante jondo( deep song) in the last century. As its residents were a cheerful people, a lighter style of flamenco also developed there called cantin'as. The most famous of these was the alegria, a festive song and dance.

abrazo_ embrace. hug

afficionado_ connoisseur, fan. An enthusiast of the art of flamenco. Also a performer of any of its aspects who does not practice as a professional.

aire_ literally air. In flamenco an approving reference to the general character of, or manner of performing, a flamenco form. For example the fandangos are called aires de Huelva

bailaor,-ora_ flamenco( male/ female) dancer

baile_ flamenco dance. Flamenco is a lively dance in constant evolution, but its basic characteristics seem to have taken from 1869 and 1929, the period known the Golden Age of flamenco. The basis of flamenco dancing is that it is indissolubly connected to the guitar, an indispensible instrument in flamenco.
bulerias_ cante chico(light) y grande(big) with dancing and guitar accompaniment:
With its quick, spirited rhythm and mocking, often spontaneous coplas, the buleria is indeed the prototype of the cante festero( dance song).

cantaor,-ora_ flamenco( male/ female) singer

cante_ singing. Used as an abbreviation for flamenco singing.
The basic breakdown for the cante is as follows:

siguiriya, solea'. Formerly known cante jondo.
.
copla_ verse of flamenco cante, as against the cuple' of (non-flamenco) cante. It may have three, four, or five lines.

duende_ literally 'spirit' or 'demon. According to the Real Academia Espan'ola de Lengua, it is a mysterious and ineffable enchantment of flamenco singing. In this poetic expression the magic, supposed to be intrinsic to flamenco, is mentioned. it is thought to have a lot to do with Dionysian rites, where a type of collective state of trance is lived.

juerga_ spree, gathering of aficionados to enjoy music and drink. The word may be the gypsy pronunciation of huelga(leisure). A juerga begins with eating and drinking, with wine and olives, and is embellished with tales from the world of flamenco. The juerga is still the best means of conveying the essence of flamenco for there is no separation here between audience and performers.

Sacromonte_ a hillside in Granada. Higher up the hill, near Albaicin, some cafe where flamenco shows are held still lead back into caves.

siguiriyas_ a song form of cante jondo

solea'_ a song form of cante jondo

tablao_ stage dedicated to the art of flamenco and also the premises that are specialized in offering shows of the art of flamenco, inspired in old cafes cantantes. They became important in the 1950's stimulated by the increase of tourism.

tocaor_ guitarist

vino tento_ red wine

zapateo, zapateado_ the form of tap dancing peculiar to flamenco//
---------
Pansori (also spelled p'ansori) is a genre of Korean music. It is a vocal and percussional music performed by one sorikkun ( a singer) and one gosu (a drummer). The term pansori is derived from pan, meaning "a place where many people gather," and sori, meaning "sound."
In a pansori performance, the kwangdae sings, standing with a folding fan held in one hand. The fan is waved to emphasize the singer's motions and unfolded to announce changes of scene. The gosu gives rhythm not only by beats but also by chuimsae, verbal sounds. A chuimsae can be a simple meaningless vowel, but short words of encouragement are also given. The audience is also supposed to give chuimsae during the performance, similar to kakegoe and the shouts of "Ol" during flamenco performances.

Biblography

Bradshaw, Steve:
Cafe' Society, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London 1978
Crawshaw, Stephen (trans):
Phaiden 20th-century Art: Expressionism, Phaiden Press, Oxford 1979
Edwards, Gwynne(Text by)/Hass, Kenn(Photographs by):
!Flamenco!, Thames& Hudson, London 2000
Garcia Lorca, Federico:
Poem of the Deep song, City lights Book, San Francisco 1987
Jacobs, Michael:
Andalucia, Pallas Athene, London 1998
Janson, H. W.:
History of Art, Prentice-Hall N.J. 1965
Kim, Joon:
Chang Dong in Blue ( in Korean), Sun Publishing Company, Seoul 2004
Kirkland, Will( selected and translated):
Gypsy Cante: deep song of the caves, City Lights Books, San Francisco 1999
Lopate, Phillip(selected and with an introduction by):
The art of the Personal Essay, Anchor Books Doubleday, New York 1994
Macias, Manuel( edition)/Alberto Garcia Reyes(text):
Guide to Andalucian Flamenco, Junta de Andalucia, M'alaga 2004
Pissarro, Joachim:
Monet and the Mediterranean, Rizzoli, New York1997
Pohren, Donn:
The Art of Flamenco, Society of Spanish Studies, Madrid, 1962, 3rd ed 1972
Rilke, Reiner(trans by Joel Agee):
Letters on Cezanne, Fromm International Publishing Corp., New York 1985
Schreiner, Claus(edited):
Flamenco: gypsy dance and music from Andalusia, Amadeus Press, Portland 1996
Totton, Robin:
Song of the Outcasts: An Introduction to Flamenco. Amadeus Press, Portland 2003

*About the writer:
Korean-born, 64-year-old Joon Kim is an art-critic and travelling writer. He holds a Ph. D in international politics. He has had 9 or so books in Korean published , four of which are translations of western modern arts and politics; the others are his own creative literary writings . He lives in Seoul, South Korea, writing poetic proses on travelling and art.