Farruca

Farruca took shape in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Instituto Andaluz del Flamenco describes it as a cante of non-Andalusian folk origin that became aflamencado; the usual association is with Galicia, though its precise geographical source has never been established. Its modern theatrical form is tied to the guitarist Ramón Montoya (1879-1949), from a Madrid Gitano family and the single most influential architect of solo flamenco guitar, and to the Sevillian dancer Francisco Mendoza Ríos 'Faíco', who established it as a signature male solo. Musically it is unusual among palos: binary metre in four, commonly played in A minor rather than the flamenco Phrygian, with sharp accents on beats one, three, five and seven across two bars. The mood is austere and sombre. The dance strips away ornament — no bata de cola, no mantón, no castanets — and rests on stillness, sudden fast turns, dramatic held poses and long escalating footwork. Its gendering has eroded: Carmen Amaya danced it in trousers, and Sara Baras has made it a central part of her repertoire.