Keyword: duende, Sarah

definitions:

New Oxford English Dictionary

1. A ghost, an evil spirit 2. Inspiration, magic, fire.


The Larousse Spanish-English Dictionary translates duende as Goblin, elf, imp/Magic. It gives the usages: los duendes del Flamenco, the Magic of Flamenco; tener duende, to have a certain magic.


Spanish poet Garcia Lorca gave a lecture on duende called La Teoria y Juego del Duende – The Theory and Function of Duende where he said:


"The duende, then, is a power and not a construct, is a struggle and not a concept. I have heard an old guitarist, a true virtuoso, remark, 'The duende is not in the throat, the duende comes up from inside, up from the very soles of the feet.' That is to say, it is not a question of aptitude, but of a true and viable style - of blood, in other words; of what is oldest in culture: of creation made act.”


Lorca quotes Manuel Torres as saying "Whatever has black sounds has duende” and goes on to reflect that “These black sounds are the mystery, the roots that probe through the mire that we all know of, and do not understand, but which furnishes us with whatever is sustaining in art. Black sounds: so said the celebrated Spaniard, thereby concurring with Goethe, who, in effect, defined the duende when he said, speaking of Paganini: "A mysterious power that all may feel and no philosophy can explain."


My grandmother clucks with great satisfaction “What duende he/she has!” When she has especially enjoyed the passionate way a singer has sung a song or has seen someone dancing flamenco with a look of intensity almost bordering pain.




When we were discussing this keyword, my group partner Nese pointed out that duende is enacted through the performer, but received and perceived by the spectator which makes me wonder: if a performer performs with duende but has no-one to watch, does the duende still exist? Duende could be described as inhabiting a performance space, as being a relationship between performer, spectator and “dark spirit.”



I find duende in moving to the black sounds of the dance floor, in the dark and sugary build ups and break downs of songs like this www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7jJyD9j4Gs


in the voice of singers like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2H8UoCBNcw


and even, recently, in the forest near my house in Kaukajarvi:


Duende, then is an intimately specific expression from southern Spain. But it is also expansive in its applicability and relativity, this "mysterious power that all may feel and nobody can explain." You may pick apart theatre productions into the semiotics of lighting, costume, cadence of voice and smeary make-up. You can dissect music into bones of beats and pitch and volume and vibration. But you can’t account for the experience that is created when those elements are brought together. When there is a powerful performance, there is duende there.