TO BE SPIRITED IS TO BE FULL OF ENERGY. Energy to exert and energy to endure. I woke up late, languid and lazy on a hungover first of June, thinking to myself that on this month, half the year would have gone by. Sustaining the thought, I wasted the rest of the morning anyway, melding with the sheets, checking and rechecking social feeds; perhaps the worst habit I've developed in the past year.
It was time to get up, get the rest of the day, and year, going. To inspire some energy into my mid-year crisis of sorts, I turn to an art form that exists by its very spiritedness, characterized by emotional intensity, maturity and expressiveness. Only once have I been to a proper tablao -definitely not counting the choreographed tour group shows- so I travel into the inner circles of Flamenco life through Gilles Larrain's Flamenco photography series begun in 1983.
"Flamenco: Landscape of its Soul" depicts some of the genre's contemporary figures, both in Larrain's New York studio and in Seville, where the tradition-interspersed-with-daily-life first enthralled him. The gelatin silver prints are of very limited editions, printed by Larrain himself and continuously compiled for future plans of publication.
Beyond stills, however passionate, I believe no experience of Flamenco is complete without the toque, cante and baile beheld in audio-visual glory. Here, Antonio Gades and Cristina Hoyos lead my spirited, vigorous stamping through the second half of an almost sluggish year.
"Flamenco: Landscape of its Soul" by Gilles Larrain, www.gilleslarrain.com Images from www.behance.net/Larrain Antonio Gades and Cristina Hoyos from Carlos Moya Danza Teatro
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