Blink once, if you're alive
Blink once, if you're alive
I'm going to go inside and talk with a friend of mine, Antonio Moya, who's a flamingo dancer.
Flamenco is part of our culture in Spain, this is a mix of different cultures, it began
two centuries ago in South Spain with gypsies that came from India, Jewish people that were
in South Spain at that time, Arabs, and the Andalusians.
It was the Flamenco of the beginning, it was a kind of life, a kind of expression of life, how they felt bad, not happy, and especially very low class.
And then later, much more later, it started to be in these cafes here, Cafe Teatro, and it's like today, it's like this place, it's like Flamenco for the public.
But before it was only in families and between them.
Oh, because I noticed it's very emotional, very emotional.
So how long have you been dancing?
Me?
Yeah.
Actually I started very old.
I started like very young, but I first went to university, I was studying, etc.
And then I started about with 20 something.
So very late to be a dancer, and I was, I have to say I was very lucky.
And what's your training for, how often do you train, how often do you rehearse, practice?
Well, today you don't practice anymore.
See, I would never know that you didn't practice.
I have because I'm the owner of this place and because I have so much work and I dance every night, so I don't have much time.
Now this year I start to take again some classes or to training.
But because I have already, you know, level, like I say, I can work without taking class every day or practicing.
But before I was practicing a lot, many, many hours.
I would do it, but I don't have the time now, I would love to.
You were saying that, because I thought that people in Madrid are used to seeing Flamingo dancing.
And I was thinking more like the tourists, the people who are visiting should see Flamingo.
But you were saying that the people in Madrid actually still are very much into it.
No.
Not really?
No, the Spanish people will happen is that they have a wrong idea, or maybe it's not wrong, but they have an idea about tablaos.
We call tablaos Flamingos, places like that.
And the idea of Spanish people is like only for tourists.
Right.
Like really gitties, but we say gitties, no?
And it's like an old style of Flamingo and, you know, they have, maybe it was right at one time.
But now, especially in Madrid, that we want to make an association of different, all the tablaos Flamingos from Madrid,
to take off this idea of the tablaos, that we want the Spanish people start to come again,
because it really is the quality when very up.
So in which I always, and I don't talk only for me, all the tablaos from Madrid, we try to have a very high level.
So we want to bring everybody here.
But maybe it's true that in one moment that happened that, you know, the Flamingo and the tablaos was like very cheap.
Yeah.
You know, cheap shows, not really serious, not really deep.
No quality.
Right.
Just kind of like, because my brother was actually saying that about some of the bullfights too,
that they're kind of, they're washed, like they're not really the quality, it's just a show.
It's not really something.
I have to say that it's changing, and that's why we are trying to make an association of tablaos Flamingo and Madrid, you know.
Because it's really, to be a Flamingo guitarist or a singer or a dancer,
really the place where you, first you go to school, different places, you train,
but where you really make yourself, your personality, your character is in the tablaos.
Because you improvise a lot.
You don't rehearse, never rehearse with a musician.
So you have to know where it's like a language.
You have to know about that, how to work there.
It's not like a theater that everything is already rehearsing.
And the tablaos, you don't rehearse.
So it's like, a lot of it is freestyling.
You guys are kind of waking it up as you go.
Wow.
It's a language you know how to talk with the other, and you have to answer it.
It looks like you're beating somebody out.
It looks like you're angry at somebody and you're stomping it out on the stage.
It's like, I don't know, is it like a release?
Like you feel like better after?
Yes, but not always, it's like sometimes you're sad, you're angry.
For many times also, especially in different pieces, the end is like happy.
That's what we call buleria.
And this is always, you know, more happy.
At the end it's like more funny.
But it's like you're telling a story.
Because it's like a story from beginning to end.
Something happens and it's like a story telling.
Like you're angry, now you're happy, then you're sad, then you're angry.
And it's like, okay, at the end we're all happy.
But talk to me about TripAdvisor, because TripAdvisor, they gave you an award.
I don't know much about them.
I know that there are people who are coming because of TripAdvisor.
And we received a prize this year.
I don't know why, but I know.
I know because people were talking very well about us.
So they gave us the certificate of guarantee or something like that for this year.
Like the best place.
We are very glad about that.
Of course, yeah, for sure.
No, I recommend everybody, whoever comes to Madrid, needs to come to Las Tablas to come watch Antonia.
Like it's incredible.
The thing in Las Tablas also is that maybe to make a difference with other places,
I don't want to make a difference from quality because everyone has their own business.
And we are all, how can I say, like friends, you know?
But the things in Las Tablas that both of us, my partner, Marisol and me,
we are both the owner and the dancer.
That's right, that's right.
So for us, when people came here and said,
why do you have such a big stage? It's one of the biggest stages for these kind of places.
I said, because for me, when the public comes, the most important thing here is not the food,
it's not the wine or whatever, it's the show, it's the flamenco.
Absolutely.
For me, it's the flamenco.
And then, of course, we tried to have good wines, to have good salad, whatever, you know,
always good quality, but the most, the most important mistake.
Because we love the flamenco and that's why we had this project.
Let's go.
Las Tablas, Plaza Espanol number nine.
