Tablao flamenco

In the days when the flamenco dancer Carmen Amaya was quite the celebrity, a year after making a hit on the big screen with the film Los Tarantos, by Francisco Robira Beleta, a tablao (a flamenco bar) opened at the heart of Barcelona that has since then, 1963, until now offered some of the best flamenco sessions ever seen in the Catalan capital. This is because the city of Barcelona has always been one of the most important places in the world of flamenco art, a city that has welcomed, which has given birth to some of the best performers of this genre which emerged on the banks of the Guadalquivir river in late eighteenth century.

A few feet from where Catalan Rumba – an unorthodox, local form of Flamenco – evolved, near some streets that had housed venues in the early twentieth century where much-talked-about Flamenco parties were held, a venue on the corner of Plaça Reial picked up the remnants of this art form in the sixties and eventually became one of the few tablaos of that era that still remain open in Barcelona.

But Tarantos does not only exemplify the city’s desire to keep the spirit alive of one of the most successful art forms in our country, it also shows the character of a neighbourhood, Ciutat Vella, more accurately, in a city, Barcelona, open to mixing and the recognition of world music that has captivated thousands of local fans and that little by little, has formed a significant part of the cultural reality of our country.

Today, flamenco enjoys excellent health in Barcelona thanks in part to the work of flamenco clubs such as Tarantos; an indisputable reference point for the new generation of Catalan flamenco artists, and for those who wish to enjoy a good session of flamenco .