After five hundred years, the influence of the Moors can still be seen in Southern Spain. In the arts and crafts, in many Spanish faces the imprint of the dark invader still shows. And above all in the dance: the famous back-bends, the delicate play of finger and hand, the sudden petrified poses are more Eastern than European. This book deals with the dances of Southern, Central and North-West Spain. Mrs. Lucile Armstrong spent a large part of her life travelling the Iberian peninsula, studying the arts of the people and noting down the traditional dances. Herself a folk-dancer of great experience, she wrote in this book, in addition to a general introduction to these regions and their customs, a more detailed description of four Spanish dances: two simple, one of medium difficulty and one, the Seguidillas Sevillanas of Andalusia, which, as she said, is more subtle and needs special study. Step notations and music illustrate these dances, and in addition four plates by the author show in colour the beauty of Spanish peasant costume.

Flamenco Music and National Identity in Spain explores the efforts of the current government in southern Spain to establish flamenco music as a significant patrimonial symbol and marker of cultural identity. Further, it aims to demonstrate that these Andalusian efforts form part of the ambitious project of rethinking the nation-state of Spain, and of reconsidering the nature of national identity. A salient theme in this book is that the development of notions of style and identity are mediated by social institutions. Specifically, the book documents the development of flamenco's musical style by tracing the genre's development, between 1880 and 1980, and demonstrating the manner in which the now conventional characterization of the flamenco style was mediated by krausist, modernist, and journalist institutions. Just as importantly, it identifies two recent institutional forces, that of audio recording and cinema, that promote a concept of musical style that sharply contrasts with the conventional notion. By emphasizing the importance of forward-looking notions of style and identity, Flamenco Music and National Identity in Spain makes a strong case for advancing the Spanish experiment in nation-building, but also for re-thinking nationalism and cultural identity on a global scale.

Excerpt from Folk Songs From the Spanish Southern Spain - and a short, sleepless night full of the drifting scent of orange-blossoms; moonlight slanting in a white bar through the open window; footsteps coming and going ceaselessly in the street outside; voices, laughter; then, later, silence creeping in like a deep, slow tide, and suddenly a man's voice, singing: Por una mirada tuya Lo que diera no seyo; Por un beso, la existencia, Por iu amor, salvacion. The words float through the window with the moonlight and the scent of orange-blossoms, fading gently away as the late passer goes farther on. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."