In a dramatized interview for the broadcast TV show El coraje de vivir, Spanish flamenco artist Lola Flores (1923–1995) not only confessed how she lost her virginity, but described the occasion in which she accepted sex with a man in exchange for money to lessen her family's financial difficulties during the beginning years of the Francoist dictatorship (149–150). This tangential anecdote, which explicitly draws an intersecting connection between flamenco and sexual labor, allows Fernando López Rodríguez to challenge traditional understandings of flamenco history in his most recent book, Historia queer del flamenco: desvíos, transiciones y retornos en el baile flamenco (1808–2018) (Queer History of Flamenco: Deviations, Transitions, and Returns in Flamenco Dance [1808–2018]). Through an approach anchored in a broad understanding of the term “queer,” López Rodríguez offers a new reading of flamenco dance that highlights forgotten marginal voices from the beginning of the nineteenth century, arguing for the invisibilized queerness flamenco embodies. López Rodríguez's book expands on the dissertation he defended at Université Paris VIII in 2019 and draws on his vast experience as a dancer and choreographer. This text comes as an extension of his previous book, titled De puertas para adentro: disidencia sexual y disconformidad de género en la tradición flamenca (Indoors: Sexual Disidency and Gender Nonconformity in Flamenco Tradition) (Egales, 2017). The result is an ambitious piece that aims to firmly question flamenco dance from a combination of critical approaches that the author associates with the term “queer.” Rather than a singular thesis, this book offers a set of invaluable questions to be answered by future researchers of the crossroads between flamenco and queerness.
Historia queer del flamenco is structured in three chapters, each of which includes short sections that narrate various topics in chronological order starting in 1808. The first chapter, “Emergencia y desvíos del género (1808–1975)” (Genre/Gender Emergency and Deviations [1808–1975]), engages in the polysemic meaning of the word “género” in Spanish, which refers to both “genre” and “gender” in English. Spanning across over 150 years from the beginning of the war of independence against Napoleon (1808–1814) until the end of Francisco Franco's dictatorship in 1975, López Rodríguez offers a history of flamenco dance focusing on the dialectic between traditionally understood masculine and feminine forces within Spanish dance. Moreover, he provides an overview of the evolution of flamenco dance from its marginal origins in the cabaret-like café cantante up to its commodification on the tablao as a proper flamenco nightclub during Francoism. López Rodríguez argues that flamenco dance appears as a masculine phenomenon associated with Spanish national identity against the so-called feminine values of the French Enlightenment (37). The author cleverly points out later in this chapter that, because of the crisis of masculinity Spain experienced at the end of the nineteenth century, flamenco dance began to be seen as an undervalued feminine activity (43). During this period, cafés cantantes welcomed male foreigners whose voyeuristic gaze contributed to associating flamenco with the literary characters in Prosper Mérimée's Carmen and Pierre Louÿs's La femme et le pantin. However, one of the most important achievements of this book is highlighting the dissident facet of these clubs, where cross-dressing, sexual labor, and all sorts of addictive substances intersected with flamenco dance. Following this line of thought, López Rodríguez underlines the opportunity these spaces opened up for nonnormative sexualities and gender identities, which ultimately appeared in future flamenco dance venues, including óperas flamencas (flamenco theater shows) and zarzuelas (Spanish operetta). Foundational figures such as Trinidad Huertas, Estrella de Andalucía, or Ernesto Foliers, along with well-known flamenco stars such as Miguel de Molina, Pedrito Rico, or Carmen Amaya, are crucial references in López Rodríguez's argument. He proposes a queer reading of flamenco dance and music that prioritizes alternative sexualities and gender identities, while also challenging the more traditional approaches to flamenco that characterized the first three quarters of the twentieth century.
The following chapter, “Transiciones y nuevas identidades (1975–2008)” (Transitions and New Identities [1975–2008]), similarly focuses on relevant figures within flamenco during this important historical period in contemporary Spain, but this time turns to those who rarely appear in scholarship on the subject. López Rodríguez engages with relevant contemporary debates within Peninsular studies and honors the lives of sexually dissident flamenco voices such as Mr. Artur, Paco España, Carmen de Mairena, Enrique, el travesti cojo, La Otra Pantoja, La Petróleo, La Salvaora, and, of course, the popular Ocaña. The author participates in recent debates on these figures in tune with other Spanish scholars such as Raúl Solís Galván (Reference Solís Galván2019), Valeria Vegas (Reference Vegas2019), and Pedro G. Romero (Reference Romero2011), and advocates for a more nuanced understanding of their artistic practices that conceptualizes them not only within the limits of flamenco, but also in dialogue with current performing arts practices worldwide during the Spanish transition to democracy. In the second section within the same chapter, López Rodríguez underscores flamenco artists who shaped the notion of ballet flamenco once the progressive decline of tablaos was unstoppable, an effort originated by the influential dance figures Mario Maya and Antonio Gades. The author highlights the importance of contemporary artists such as Sara Baras, Belén Maya, Joaquín Cortés, or Israel Galván to describe some of the iconic shows that helped incorporate queer components into institutional flamenco in the 1990s. Topics such as the erotization of the male body, cross-dressing practices such as the use of the bata de cola (traditional female flamenco dress) by male performers, or the vindication of nonnormative bodies and movements gained more presence in flamenco shows at the turn of the twenty-first century, inspired by this generation of artists.
The third and final chapter analyzes the decade following the financial crisis of 2008. López Rodríguez prioritizes the economic and social consequences of the recession to explain the recent past of flamenco dance through the conceptualization of the term “queer” as economically marginal. In tune with other cultural activities within the Spanish territory during the crisis, flamenco is defined during this period by its precarity. This resulted in the disappearance of an artistic network, leading to an impoverishment of flamenco dancers who ultimately started to dance in the streets or came back to the tablaos. The supposed artistic freedom of these spaces is brilliantly problematized by the author (241), but the originality of this chapter resides in two fundamental notions for queer flamenco today: historia guiri del flamenco (guiri history of flamenco) and LGTBIQ-F activism. “Guiri” is an ambiguous Spanish term usually used to refer to white foreign tourists spending their vacations in Spain. López Rodríguez engages with international scholarship and practice to advocate for the importance of international approaches to flamenco for which other scholars such as K. Meira Goldberg and Ninotchka Bennahum (Reference Bennahum and Meira Goldberg2003) have advocated. From Kazuo Ohno's homage to La Argentina to relevant world dance figure La Meri, the author clearly demonstrates that flamenco does not only come from Andalusia, despite its institutionalization when declared intangible heritage by UNESCO in 2010 (275). López Rodríguez also emphasizes the importance of LGTBIQ-F activism in the last decade. By adding an F in reference to the first letter of the term “flamenco,” the author highlights the practice of artists such as Manuel Liñán or Carlos Carvento to explicitly underline the social impact that emerges at the intersection of flamenco dance and the defense of LGTBIQ+ rights. López Rodríguez ends this chapter by briefly engaging with notions of coloniality, disability, and race in relation to flamenco dance in order to expand his understanding of the term “queer.”
To conclude, López Rodríguez advocates for the life-changing potential of flamenco dance and advocates for the term inclusion rather than for a queerer understanding of queerness. His intellectual project presents a publicly engaged academic dimension that also appears in his role as a dancer and choreographer as well as in his participation in different public media. This book is, in fact, an example of both academic writing as well as a rich text for broader audiences. Despite of the length of the book, its division in short sections contributes to an agile reading. The same structural facet of the text partially weakens the argument building, whose main goal does not ultimately turn into a clear thesis apart from the one that the title states. López Rodríguez's diverse entry points of inquiry allow the reader to be exposed to a multitude of queer flamenco practices while also raising provocative yet-to-be-answered questions for the field. Historia queer del flamenco is an important contribution not only to flamenco studies but to dance and Peninsular studies as well. This book opens the door for new scholarly endeavors within flamencology, serves as a reference for similar intellectual exercises in other dance genres, and engages with current conversations in contemporary Spain that often relegate flamenco to the periphery.
