Passion play

Flamenco is to salsa as orgasm is to foreplay.

Café Patas, some time after midnight on a Saturday. The Goo-roo led me in past late diners and happy tipplers, down a long room to a counter in the wall. Bought our tickets. And waited for the door to open. Obviously Madrid time is fairly close to Indian Standard. We didn’t get inside for another 15 minutes and the midnight performance didn’t start till well after 12:30.

Chairs and tables on two sides of what we in India call a “dais” (usually pronounced ‘day-ess’), a curtained enclosure behind it, some chairs along the wall. The room was large and dimly lit. Some of the audience obviously appreciated the low lighting and took full advantage of it. Some others, more obviously, just didn’t give a damn. A performance before the performance, in a manner of speaking. Another door from the ticket enclosure had a backwoods bar – a plank to put the bottles on – and a trio of Latinas swayed around the room with interesting glassfuls. The Goo-roo, punctilious as ever, asked my choice and was a little disappointed when I stuck to water.

Frankly, at that point in time, with my eyelids gummy from lack of sleep, my head spinning from fatigue and wine, all I wanted was to get it over with and find a nice warm bed. What little flamenco I had seen on television was graceful but stylised, rather stiff. Huevos y Bacon and Pepe came to mind. Perhaps twenty minutes or so, then I’d prod the Goo-roo into a homeward cab. Meanwhile, the guitarist appeared, doffed his hat, struck a few chords, loosened his fingers on the strings. Nice.

The curtains parted again and a large lady in black emerged to sit beside the guitarist. Then a larger lady, also in black. I blinked. Finally a rather handsome couple stepped up on the stage. He was obviously Latin, lean-hipped, square-jawed, with long wavy hair flowing below his shoulders. She looked a little like Martina Hingis, but the eyes were far more fiery.

The first large lady suddenly set up a wail. The guitarist sprang in with a glissando and a sudden percussion effect. The performance had started.

And I was lost.

THIS was flamenco? The energy, the sheer energy of it all! This was intravenous speed! It had about as much relation to the staid posturing I’d had in mind as a panther has to a cream-fed tabby. The heels tapped and raced, drummed up a storm on the boards. The man’s hair flew. His jacket twirled, his arms framed air, his fingers snapped like castanets. Then she joined in. Sedate at first, so icy I almost saw the fan and the mantilla. The guitar snarled, cajoled, implored. The voices soared. He went into another impassioned series. And she caught fire. Gradually. Her fingers, her feet, her eyes. Oh yes, her eyes!

It was almost too intimate. There was none of the flirtation of salsa, no to-ing and fro-ing. Just a whole-hearted immersion in the spirit of the dance. Passion stripped so bare I felt I should look away. Physical enough to raise the sweat, yet so graceful that any moment frozen in the camera might capture the rhythm and the mood. Pirouettes so fluid I almost saw the camera-blur following the arms, finishes crisp as if cut with a knife. Fatigue or not, I was awake again.

They took a break after an hour or so. I went outside to clear my head with cold air and a cigarillo. The crowd was eclectic. A couple of mamaquitas, a terribly young dandy impeccable from shoeshine to knotted scarf, the think-tank of a mobike gang complete with their babes in alarmingly low-rise jeans and fur-trimmed knee-boots. From the expressions and gesticulations, we were united in our appreciation of the experience.

The next hour was even better. Carmen had a couple of long solos. Her rhythm was faultless, her expression sublime and tortured by turns as if she were molten in desire for a man she loathed. Raoul (or was he Carlos?) came back on for some passes that impressed with their physicality, but Carmen owned the evening. He was good, but too young and raw, even with her smiling support and the “Oles” from the audience. He was body, she added soul.

Towards the end, the largest lady in black bombazine joined her protégés. Suddenly, with a step and an upflung arm, she shed her years and her flesh. It was as if a hippopotamus had been transformed into a dolphin. She strutted, she twirled. The audience roared, Ole’d, swept up in the victory of art over time. An encore, another. And a final heart-stopping cameo from Carmen before the guitarist took his bow.

Outside, we buttoned up and stepped out. A fair way home, made longer because we couldn’t take the alleys – the Goo-roo’s phobia of muggers. No matter. I stepped lighter in memory of what I had just experienced.

Salsa? You can keep salsa.

Flamenco is to salsa as orgasm is to foreplay.

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