FLAMENCO

form of song, dance, and instrumental (mostly guitar) music commonly associated with the Andalusian Gypsies of southern Spain. (There, the Gypsy, or Rom, people and their language are known as Cal, or Gitano.) The roots of flamenco,though somewhat mysterious, seem to lie in the Gypsy migration from Rajasthan (in northwest India) to Spain between the 9th and 14th centuries. These migrants brought with them musical instruments, such as tambourines, bells, and wooden castanets, and an extensive repertoire of songs and dances. In Spain they encountered the rich cultures of the Sephardic Jews and the Moors. Their centuries-long cultural intermingling produced the unique art form known as flamenco. Additional reading Aziz Balouch, Spanish Cante Jondo and Its Origin in Sindhi Music (1968; originally published in Spanish, 1955), discusses the roots of flamenco song. Jos Blas Vega and Manuel Ros Ruiz, Diccionario enciclopdico ilustrado del flamenco, 2nd ed., 2 vol. (1990), is a lavishly illustrated encyclopaedia that also contains a discography and bibliography. Another Spanish-language source is Ricardo Molina, Misterios del arte flamenco: ensayo de una interpretacin anthropolgica (1967, reissued 1985). Also informative is Barbara Thiel-Cramr, Flamenco: The Art of Flamenco, Its History, and Development Until Our Days, trans. from Swedish (1991). Juan Serrano and Jos Elgorriaga, Flamenco, Body and Soul: An Aficionado's Introduction (1990), includes a cassette of songs and guitar music performed by Serrano, himself a flamenco guitarist and a powerful singer of cante jondo, and others.