Back to the Singing Caf

Along with the bullfights and the Prado, Spain's fabled flamenco dancing is something every tourist wants to see. What U.S. visitors seldom realize is that the "authentic" dances staged in the vast majority of Spain's "singing cafes" or tablaos 'these days are more flimflam than flamenco. To meet the demand, moaned a flamenco impresario in Madrid last week, "anybody who can wiggle his feet or snap his fingers has set up a tablao--and is cleaning up. The result is the complete breakdown of authentic flamenco. They're all dancing the way they think the public wants it, and most of the time they don't know any more about flamenco than the per son out front." Then where to find the real thing?

One place is Flushing Meadow, Long Island. There, in the Spanish Pavilion at the New York World's Fair, Manuela Vargas and her first-rate 16-member flamenco troupe hold forth four times a day. The raw, unbridled passion of their performance tops the fair's entertainment bill. Haughty as a peacock, La Vargas commands with a scowl that would intimidate a bandit. What she doesn't convey with her Goyaesque good looks, arching back and rippling feet, she says with her long serpentine arms and spidery hands.

Now 27, Seville-born Manuela first blossomed on the international scene when she won the prestigious Theater of Nations Festival Dance Award in Paris in 1963. Daughter of a cattle salesman, she is an amateur bullfighter and a "purebred" Andalusian gitana (gypsy), whose ancestors have made flamenco a way of life for more than three centuries. In today's Spain, many flamenco performers are not even gypsies--or dancers either.

To the horror of its aficionados, flamenco has been crossbred with classical ballet and, most recently, rock 'n' roll. Appalled by this gaudy, twisty hybridization, devotees have founded flamencology centers in an effort to rescue the classic art from "philistinism."

Most successful of these authentic singing cafes is Madrid's La Zambra. There the defenders of the cause gather to watch diminutive Rosita Duran, the greatest female flamenco dancer since La Argentinita. La Zambra's success has prompted the opening of a smattering of similar tablaos. But there are still only some two dozen topflight dancers and singers in the country--and 14 million tourists a year to applaud twist flamenco.

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