Sunday November 4th, 2018
Logan Center, Screening Room 201, 915 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL
Film screening: 5-7pm
Flamenco Performance: 7-8pm
Description: The recent critically acclaimed documentary film Gurumbé: Afro-Andalusian Memories (Miguel Ángel Rosales, 2016) participates in an on-going debate about the importance of the African diaspora in the founding of modern Hispanic nations. The film explores the subtle but certain interconnections between the music of Senegal, Portugal, Spain, and Mexico. Rosales’s footage of his travels through these countries sheds new light on the often ignored influence that Afro-descendants had on Flamenco, a style of music central to Spanish national identity. The film prominently features Yinka Esi Graves, an acclaimed flamenco dancer of African descent. She and the director of the film will be in attendance, and Graves will perform live with her musicians after the screening. This event was organized by the Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Student Committee with the support of the Center for Latin American Studies, the Film Studies Center, the Katz Center for Mexican Studies, the Logan Center, the Working Group on Slavery and Visual Culture, and the Departments of Romance Languages and Literatures, Music, and Cinema and Media Studies. For a trailer of the film, see: https://vimeo.com/146310886.
This looks like an amazing documentary -hope to be able to watch it.
However as a Spaniard of Galician origin – I do take offense that you state that flamenco is central to Spanish national identity. Flamenco is as foreign to me as it is to a German – it has nothing to do with my national identity – we dance the Muñeira and play the gaita (bag-pipes). It is unnecessary to erase and dismiss the identity of the rest of Spain to make your point.