Jose Cadalso's Las Cartas Marruecas

Shah Asad Rizvi said, “If movements were a spark every dancer would desire to light up in flames.” No where is this quote more applicable than in flamenco dancers. Flamenco is a musical tradition and art form from the Andalusia region of Southern Spain. Original records of the flamenco date back to Jose Cadalso’s 1774 book, Las Cartas Marruecas, although the actual Andalusian musical style is much older. There are four main parts of the Flamenco; singing, guitar playing, dancing, and “hell-raising” or handclapping and foot stomping. The music is a combination of four Southern Spain cultures; the Gypsies, the Moors (or Arabs), the Jews, and the indigenous people of Andalusia. Although the origins were Southern Spain, the music and dance have

Lorca was born in Granada, Spain in 1893 while Spain was going through a time of liberation and reform which may have influenced his story. The story is based on a true event that happened in a rural village where Lorca lived and infuses the social, historical, and cultural events of the time in which the characters lived. The basic plot is a dominant, distraught mother is not happy with upcoming marriage of her young son. There is a love triangle between the young bride and the two men who love her. And like a Shakespearean tragedy, there is death, jealousy, and

We realize the two men are going to fight, The bride steps between the two men in an attempt to stop the impending duel. Knives are drawn and both men dramatically raise their arms and knives in the air, staring each other down. Again there is an absence of music as the slow motion knife fight ensues. All of the movements are large and overdone in slow motion, both exaggerated high arms and wide spread knife-wielding arms. In the background is a distraught bride with arms outstretched beseeching to the two men battling over her. As the two men eventually stab and kill each other the frenzied stomping, clapping and screaming break out to symbolize the violence. The bride is alone on the stage looking at her own hands. This is symbolic, even though she did not physically kill either one, she figuratively has their blood on her hands. The movie ends with the bride standing by the two dead