Romancero Books with the support of the Office for Cultural and Scientific Affairs of the Spanish Embassy in London and AC/E Programme for the Internalisation of Spanish Culture presents the IV Festival of Queer Literature in Spanish in London - FQLSL
Book Launch: A Queer History of Flamenco: Diversions Transitions and Returns in Flamenco
Dance (1808–2018)
A conversation with Fernando López Rodríguez about their book A Queer History of Flamenco followed by the screening of Queerolé by filmmaker and dancer Patricia Langa.
A Queer History of Flamenco offers a groundbreaking exploration of flamenco through the lenses of queer theory and cultural studies. Previous histories have provided a largely distorted image about why, where, and how people have done flamenco―as well as who has performed flamenco. Yet feminists, transvestites, butches, femmes, the Spanish Roma, disabled people, guiris, and “incomprehensible” artists have been determined to do things differently without giving up their flamenco status. In this skillful translation of his book Historia Queer del Flamenco , Fernando LÓpez RodrÍguez draws on diverse archival materials as well as his own lived experience and artistic practice, unearthing queer flamenco histories, voices, and perspectives that were previously unknown, avoided, or purposely hidden. Tracing flamenco’s development from its birth up to the contemporary era, the book places flamenco within significant historical periods such as the Spanish Civil War, Franco’s dictatorship, the transition to democracy, and the economic crisis of 2008, up to contemporary performances of the late 2010s. In taking a queer approach to History, the author abandons antiquated debates about purities and impurities; anecdotes about the lives of artists that are completely detached from their processes of creation; and myths about geniuses who seem to make art alone and completely detached from their collaborators and the historical, social, economic and artistic moment in which they lived. A Queer History of Flamenco is not only about the present and the queerness of people living, performing, or creating in it, but also about flamenco’s past in which so many queer artists and practices and their lives have remained unearthed and unaddressed.
Queerolé! is about Patricia Langa wishes to reconnect with her Spanish heritage. Patricia shall travel back in time, through the gender politics of Flamenco ́s queer history to meet some of the individuals who imprinted their own stamp on the form. They shall encounter real and fictional characters who challenged or upheld gender stereotypes, people who notably broke through the binary or built it up further. Patricia shall guide the audience through the use of dance, theatre, film and music to reveal the accounts of those who shaped what we understand the art form to be today, one of the most honest and free expressions of the self, found throughout the West.
Talk in English
Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the end of the event.
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