flamenco in emails, writer and bailaora

      III. Bailaora and  writer

 

 

 

           1.You are inspiring!

 

One evening in a Chinese restaurant in the downtown of Portland

I happened to sit at table side by side with a man ,his wife and their

daughter.There the foodstuff that I alone was eating unexpectedly

induced them and me to the pleasant conversation on flamenco,

as below. It was her father who began to say first to me.

" What dish is that ? It looks delicious. Um... smells good". 

 I replied, " This? boiled duck,It tastes good.",

 recommending to order it. And I asked the daughter, who said

that she is studying abroad in Spain and has come home 

to have a weekend with her parents, "Then you study Spanish?"

: Yes. Spanish literature. You love Spanish ?

: I just a few words- ole', baile or cante.

  but I am going to study it to come closer to flamenco.

: flamenco? Really?

: Yes. I love flamenco

: Oh, I love the flamenco dance

  as much as the sea color of the Mediterrenean.

: You dance it?

: No. but I wanna dance it.

: By the way, the Mediterranean is beautiful?

  What color has the sea ? 

  So to speak,deep blue or emerald green ,pure,

  as that of your eyes?     

 :(blinking her pure eyes)

  The sea is fascinating beyond description.

  Once to my eyes it happened to resemble Flamenco

  in that the color of the sea is mysterious and visionary,

  sometimes deep blue, other times emerald green

  at the mercy of light and wind.

 

 

 Portland, June 2001

 Dear Lau!

 Much surprised to hear from Dani of your illness in bed.

Really anxious to know how you are now in the evening.

Could this letter cheer you up! 

Yesterday evening was wonderful to me.I happened to talk

with a student studying in Spain about  flamenco and

the Mediterrian I was yearning to see .She was in love of

flamenco and want to dance it. This morning I read a book

about Gustave Dore, a 19c Spanish painter facinated

by gypsy and their dances. furthermore I was impressed

by a phrase on flamenco as follows: 

 

'In flamenco the Apollonian principles of strictness of form

and tempered loftness seem to have taken a back seat

to the Dionysian element of a state of intoxication

in which pain becomes pleasure.'

It reminds me of  Oscar kokashaka, a modern painter of 19c ,

who said only the person who experiences an emotional state

of being intoxicated can tastes inflaming of life."         

 

Hoping you to get soon  

healthier and happier than ever .

Gohk

 

 

 

 

 

Portland, July, 2001

Dear Lau!
buenos dias

I am here at Central Library to email you

with  a  book of ' basic spanish' put by my side,

thinking that my ignorance of Spanish anguage prevents me

from getting  closer to the Andalusian Gypsy mind and Flamenco.

Then yesterday our meeting was inspiring.

It let me get  the horizon of my literary view wider and farther !

 Admiring the deep blue sky of Portland,

 Gohk 

 

 

 

 Portland, July ,2001

Dear Lau!

Good.

Willl be there at your studio at 7:30 on thursday,
with this poetic ｅxpression of flamenco ,

sweet and bitter,in my heart :

"Deep song....is truly deep, deeper

than all the wells and oceans of the world....

It comes from the first sob and the first kiss."

 

See you,

Gohk

 

 

 

Portland, July 2001

 

Hi, Gohk:

Thursday is fine.

I am in class from 5:30-8:30. 

See you soon! 

 Lau

 

 

 

Portland, July 2001

Dear Lau!
Good morning.

Now I am enjoying an imaginative comparision

between deep flamenco cante and

the beautifully melodic Italian song. 

In flamenco cante, an artist said  in a book of flamenco,

'whatever has black sound has duende',

adding that duende, the exposure of one's soul,

its misery and suffering, love and hate, is a power

which climbs up 'from the soles of the feet' 

inside the performer.
According to him, the earth symbolizes the desert terrain

where nomads or gypsy bohemians are wandering,

the merciless land full of sun-burned rocks of black color,

ceaselessly testing human soul to the extreme situation.

On this harsh land can only the soul

who has passed the severe test

get the voice or posture of the flamenco art.

 

In contrast, the Italian song seems to be a result

from the sun-shining bright sea of the Mediterranean

with an unexplainable power to allure human soul.

Nobody can resist the sign of the sea alluring us to get free

of the triviality of our conventional lives.

So the Italian song is regarded as an irresistible sign from

beyond the sealine. Pavarotti, the famous Italian singer

wiil be a good example for it. Whenever I hear him singing ,

I sense the remote sea smell and wind.

 

 Thinking of you, 

 Gohk

 

 

 

 Portland, July 2001

 

 Dear Lau

 I  Will be there at your studio today at 5:30 pm.

In the morning I read a book, 'Flamenco', editored by

Claus schreiner, In which  two lines below caught my eyes:

1) 'cultural universality of the flamenco art'.

2) 'Flamenco , in its awesome spontaneity, is in him

   who can suffer from the world and feel within him

   - like the dawning- an irresistible urge to cry out.'

 

 Imagining a bailaora dancing solea',

whose splayed fingers trace curling arabesque!

 Gohk

 

 

 

 

 Portland, July 2001

 

Hi, Gohk:

 I am thirsty and exhausted now.

I had many classes today with children and with adults.

I love to see children experience flamenco,

something that is so far from our culture.

And also I feel as if we were all gypsies from Spain!  

I hope that you will come to class soon again. 

Your words are always so inspiring--

how I wish I had more time to write, but I suppose

that I am grateful to be able to express myself

through flamenco so many hours every day.  

 

Un abrazo fuerte y hasta pronto!

Lau

 

 

 

 

July 2001

Dear Lau!

Como esta?

Through Federico Garcia Lorca I come to get closer to Flamenco.

The poet says a word profound in meaning,that the dark inspiration

of the flamenco art comes from the depth of the unconscious.

According to the poet, this daemonic lure ranked much higher

than the 'muse or angel', intellectual and spiritual form of art

with their ordered accessible beauty.

In my mind the poet is compared to a sculptor who cut
a rump of raw marble to the art of sculpture.

 

Please pass my 'gracias' to the lady student

whom I met at your last lesson on Tuesday,

who advised me to read Garcia Lorca's poems.

 

See you.
Gohk 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 July 2001

 

Hi, Lau.

In my hand was left just the long tail part of a salamander

of a poetic vision, with its head and body slipped away

into the marsh you know in Hilsbourgh,is as below:

  'Standing by the Willamitte'

Looking at the Willamette river running

through under Steel Bridge,
under Morrison Bridge,
and Hawthorne Bridge
at sunset
I walk and walk side by side

with the streaming of the river of my mind
turning into dark grey.

My eyes follows a mirage on the river
of a dancing figure
with a lamp on in a hand.

more abstract
more remote 

 

Didn't you say this to a painter

standing before his easel

on the opposite bank of Hawthorne Bridge ?

Put your inner landscape,
the light and shadow of flamenco,
the poem of Goarcia Lorca

and your tears

into more abstract thing,
and the more solitary silence,
in order for them to be crystalized into dews.

They are now
too closer before your eyes.

more abstract
more remote
The mirage goes on saying so
at sunset

on the river
running deep and quiet
turning into dark grey.

 

Gohk

 

 

 

 

 

 Portland, July 2001

 

Dear Gohk,

Thank you for your message in verse,

which always brings an wonderful imagination

in my head and warms my heart.  

I hope to feel better soon and look forward to seeing you!

 

Abrazos,

 Lau

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Portland, Aug, 2001

 

Dear Lau

 un abrazo fuerte y hasta pronto!

 I sense a sort of sweetness at the word ' un abrazo'

 in the above  line.Is it right? What does it mean?

 

Gohk 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portland, Aug. 2001

Hi Gohk! 

Yes, it means  "a hug" and "see you soon!"   

Ok, then... un abrazo y hasta man~ana!

 

Lau 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Portland Aug.2001 

Hi, Lau,

The voice, deep and remote, of Nino de Almaden today

reminded me of the image of 'a woman of Venice',

a work of sculpture in bronze made by Alberto Giacometti, 

French sculptor.You can see the image, too remote to be worldly,

in the book 'Modern and Primitive Art', with which I will be  there

at your studio Tomorrow around 7:30.

I have loved the image of ' A woman of Venice',

as it awakes me to a sense of an irresistible yearning

for the unworldly remoteness.

Were I be a bailaor! Or were I be a cantaor!
I would express such a remoteness,

such immense solitudes  

through body and voice !

 Gohk 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portland, Aug. 2001

 

Hi, Gohk !

Long day to me in Seattle. 

The singer will work on some ideas this week and

will let me know what she thinks soon! 

Thank you again!

 

Mil abrazos,

lau