STREET PEOPLE: Flamenco dancer Lakshmi Basile's gypsy spirit

Named after the Hindu goddess of beauty (and nicknamed "La Chimi" by Spaniards who can't wrap their tongues around it), flamenco dancer Lakshmi Basile jetsets between Seville, Spain and her hometown of San Diego to present her vein-blistering-hot work.

Meet the most authentic gypsy-style flamenco dancer in town (or see her Luna Flamenca troupe's "Trois" at the Lyceum this month).

Age: 26

Your artistic motto, in two words: Amor y disfrutar (love and enjoyment)

Care to elaborate? When I dance I feel like I'm connecting to my ancestors, to my great-grandfather who was an Arabic gypsy [from Egypt]. When I dance flamenco...it messes with my soul.

What else can you dance? Ballet, modern dance, jazz, tap, breakdancing, Irish dancing...but I've never been able to express myself and get something across to other people like I do with flamenco.

Tell us about your new show: The reason why it's called "Trois," which means three in French is because of the storyline. It's like a love triangle. There are three dancers, including myself, backed by musicians...and it [shows] a woman who has her partner and all of a sudden is swept off her feet by an older man.

How'd you get into Flamenco? I grew up around it...My mom [worked] in Barcelona when she was young as a flamenco dancer. My aunt in Paraguay has a flamenco and folk dance academy.

What's flamenco mean? There are a couple of different takes on the meaning. The song, the dance and the guitar didn't come until the 19th century, when a large contingent of gypsies went through Flanders, the Flemish [region]. The Spanish word for that is "Flemings."

Is there a general theme to the dances? There's not a general theme, there are so many different colors to it. It's just expression overall of a current feeling. We have various styles called "palos." There's "alegria," which literally means happy. "Soledad," which means loneliness.

I'd say the majority of the palos are somber, the older styles are definitely more somber. And as it developed it became happier, when the gypsies got more settled in Spain...the style became more of a party style. If you look at the oldest palos, [they're about] not having food, being a peasant, being a fugitive.

Is it hard getting acceptance as an American flamenco dancer, even though you studied with the legendary Farruco family? Especially being American born, it's not easy being accepted in the flamenco world, and even less so in the gypsy world. But people don't think I'm from there, because of my features. [Editor's note: Basile's family hails largely from South America] But it hasn't all been enjoyable.

The nature of the arts is already very competitive; they already bring a lot of drama. Working in Spain the first year at Tablas I'd go home every night crying, because people were downing me. I've even had moments when my master teacher took me to add me to a list of artists and an agent laughed in my face. It was like, ugh, ouch...I grew up dancing, just like them. I was born in the arts. But when it comes to me dancing, it's been wonderful, and I feel like I'm free.

Where she hangs: I definitely stop by the Turquoise in PB; it's like a little European Bar. The owner Basilio Ceravolo, he's the one who had all the impromptu flamenco parties when I was a little girl. This was my mom's first friend [when she came] from Argentina. On Tuesdays he has flamenco night. And every time I go I get treated like a queen.

Then other than there, my house in Encanto. I have a big family and we're all musicians and artists and the next thing you know the guitar comes out and the piano...

Where she eats: Thai Time over in North Park.

Perfect San Diego weekend: I would say lunch out there in Seaport Village and then a little walk there or anywhere near the beach -- PB or Coronado.

Then in the evening going to some bar like Basilico's, where you get some kind of ethnic music, because I'm not into the typical techno. Then the next day, I'd be happy to have another beach day, then go to the movies. I love the Gaslamp, over the years it's been getting better and better. And definitely being with my family. They're very key to me.

Then to finish up the weekend, just have a flamenco party at my house or someone else's house with wine and friends and by 2 in the morning we start singing and dancing. I live for those. I'm going to do this for my birthday. A flamenco "juerga," [which] means party. I love parties, I grew up at parties, I'll probably die partying.

Favorite Books:
"Maldito Gitano" by Ronald Lee
"Libro de Poemas/Romancero Gitano/Llanto por Sanchez Mejias" etc. by Federico Garcia Lorca
"The Art of Flamenco" by Donn Pohren
"The Dirty Girls Social Club" by Alisa Valdés-Rodríguez
"Tao Of Jeet Kune Do" by Bruce Lee
"The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe

Top 10 songs:

1. "Se Nos Rompe el Amor" by Fernanda de Utrera
2. "Ruthenian Rock" by The Electrocarpathians
3. "Cry Baby" by Janis Joplin
4. "El Poeta Lloro" by Bambino
5. "Wish You Where Here" by Pink Floyd
6. "Let´s Stay Together" by Al Green
7. "Rumanian Tune" by The Electrocarpathians
8. "No Ordinary Love" by Sade
9. "Kaya" by Bob Marley
10. "Bulerias" by Manuel Molina

Lakshmi Basile's troupe, Luna Flamenca, will perform "Trois" at the Lyceum March 27-28.

Girl vanishes 120 miles from Madeleine’s holiday resort

WILLIAM TINNING

The parents of Madeleine McCann were yesterday said to be "extremely concerned" to learn that another child had gone missing 120 miles from where their daughter disappeared.

Five-year-old Mari Luz Cortes was last seen at a sweet stall at about 5pm on Sunday in the Spanish town of Huelva. Her parents believe she was abducted.

The port is 25 miles from the Portuguese border, only a two-hour drive from Praia da Luz in the Algarve where Madeleine was snatched on May 3 last year.

(MORE)

Gypsy heat

December 16, 2007 Regional News

Spain’s oldest woman – a gypsy – has gone without heating all her life
WHO needs central heating? Spain’s oldest woman Maria Diaz Cortes – aged 115 – has lived without it all her life.

Living in a shanty town on the outskirts of Seville, she is now refusing to move to an Old People’s Home, with all the mod cons.

Maria, who lives in a shack in the rough area of El Vacie, to the north of the city, is well looked after by her family including youngest daughter, aged 72.

“It is out of the question to move,” her daughter Dolores explained. “She would rather live under a bridge than in a home. Gypsies don’t have that culture of putting their relatives in homes.”

The town hall is now studying a plan to move the whole family into a council house in the city instead.

Maria was born in Granada in 1892 and is thought to be the oldest person in Spain, if not Europe.

The previous oldest was Jeanne Calment, who died in France at 122 in 1997.

A new report has just been issued that shows that the average life expectancy for Spaniards has risen to over 80 years.

The average for women is 83.5 years – just pipped by France – while men reach 79.96.

The figure has risen by four years since 2001 when the average was 79.44.

In the UK men only make it to 77.08 and women to 81.12 years.

Gypsies fight back to beat Guardia Civil

By: thinkSPAIN

A team of Gypsies from the Anakerando Kaló Association in Lepe (Huelva) had to work hard after trailing for most of the game, but finished the stronger to take the honours with a 6-4 final victory against a team from the local Guardia Civil barracks.

The match was one of the most-eagerly awaited of a series of actvities organised in the town this week to promote cultural integration, and drew a large enthusiastic crowd.

Other activities have included: a conference on Gypsy culture followed by a poem recital, and a presentation by a group of Gypsy children on the importance of education and not bunking off school.

In addition, the Romani flag was hoisted over the Town Hall to a rendition of the Gypsy anthem.


Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Spanish gypsy widow takes her case to the European Court of Human Rights

Oct 17, 2007 - 6:59 PM

El Mundo newspaper reports on Wednesday of the case of a gypsy woman who has been refused a widow’s pension by the state because she and her husband married gypsy style. María Luisa Muñoz is now taking her claim to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg after seven years of fighting in the courts in Spain have proved unsuccessful.

She married Mariano Jiménez in 1971, and had six children with him before his death in December 2000. The INSS National Social Security Institute refused her application for a widow’s pension, on the grounds that she was not his spouse, despite his many years of paying into the system.

María Luisa’s first claim to a social court in Madrid was upheld, but was later overturned by a higher court on an appeal placed by the INSS. Her last resort was the Constitutional Court, where all but one of the magistrates voted in the court’s ruling earlier this year that she had not suffered discrimination because of her race.

The Fundación Secretariado Gitano, a non-profit organisation which works for the promotion of the Roma community and who are giving their legal support to María Luisa in her claim, says her situation is a clear example of discrimination and a ‘violation of human rights.’

The FSG also points out that the couple’s marriage took place some years before the 1978 Constitution, at a time when laws which expressly discriminated against the gypsy people were still in force.

Gypsy camp evicted in Spain

Three hundred Romanian citizens, Roma ethnics, were evicted from a tent camp near the city of La Herrera (Albacete, Spain) in a Civil Guard intervention, daily El Mundo reads, quoted by the Realitatea TV station. according to the newspapers, the police demanded their documents, then forced them to leave the area.

The Spanish papers informs that tens of tents remained near the Tajo-Segura aqueduct, where the Roma camp was, while other immigrants still remained in the area saying that they have nowhere to go.

The camp was largely publicized in Spain during the past few weeks, after the local authorities discovered that the immigrants used the aqueduct water to wash themselves and their clothes, the water then arriving in the village homes.

HotNews.ro, Aug 23, 2007

Gypsy Caravan: US Theatrical Release!

Gypsy Caravan (a.k.a.: When the Road Bends...tales of a Gypsy Caravan) launches its U.S. theatrical release in New York City this June! It will screen in over twenty US cities throughout the summer.

Don't miss this dazzling display of the musical world of the Roma, juxtaposed to the real world they live in! Check for screening dates and theaters in a town near you.

For more details contact Little Dust Productions at 212-228-7777 or info@littledust.com
-or-
Karen O'Hara at karenoh@aol.com or 520-326-0813.

More about the film...

This rich feature documentary by Jasmine Dellal (American Gypsy) and shot by Albert Maysles celebrates the luscious music of top international Gypsy performers and interweaves stirring looks at their home life and personal stories.

GYPSY CARAVAN is an uplifting and moving documentary which explores the real lives of the Roma as we travel to their homes in Macedonia, Romania, India and Spain. Meet their families and see what music brings to their lives – a link to an ancient culture, a common language, a traditional career – all of which is a stark and often painful contrast to life on the road.

The personal drama and stories of these characters are interwoven with their performances, reflecting the imagery and emotion of their music. We see love and death and tales of lives that are raw and rich. They make us laugh and cry and laugh again, allowing us to understand and expand on the riches of Romani music and history, and letting us enjoy knowing the people intimately.

GYPSY CARAVAN is currently screening at festivals in Seattle, London and Transilvania. It launched at Tribeca and garnered festival awards from San Francisco to Nashville and Vancouver, and from Korea to the Czech Republic.

Read about the outreach efforts of Gypsy Caravan and the lessons learned about bringing this film to Roma communities and new and unexpected audiences around the world.

• Gypsy Caravan Outreach Journal I by Lucy Kay

•Gypsy Caravan Outreach Journal II by Sara Nolan

•Salon.com summarized it well: "Let me read your thoughts: You're not much interested in Gypsy music, and the historical and cultural stuff might be pretty dry. That's what I thought too: Wrong and wrong. ...a cinematic and musical experience that's absolute magic."

Read the full article.

When the Road Bends...tales of a Gypsy Caravan released by Shadow Distribution

Starts
06/15/2007
Ends
08/11/2007

Issues
Economic Justice, Family & Society, Immigration, International, Politics/Government, Racial Justice, Poverty, Asia, Europe, Middle East, Romany

Homepage
www.GypsyCaravanMovie.com

Contact
info@littledust.com

Posted on June 15, 2007 in Film / Screening by Anayansi

Local author Alison Mackie pens sensual tale of gypsies

06/06/07

Punta Gorda Herald

"She was a gypsy lady ..."

So goes part of the chorus of a now forgotten song popular several decades ago.

For local author Alison Mackie, that phrase takes her back to her childhood in Seville, Spain, where she was cared for by an Andalusian gypsy named Ahalita who played flamenco records for her and taught her to dance.

As the About the Author section of her new book, "The Gypsy Chronicles," states, "I feel that the residue of Ahalita's spirit is somehow linked with my own. I may not have gypsy blood flowing through my veins, but I have something of Ahalita, that is a certainty."

That spirit needed a release, and she found it by writing a book chronicling the lives of a romantic gypsy matrimonial-bed maker by the name of Tzigany de Torres and his wife, Gitana, as well as the people for whom he made beds.

It is a sensual, even spicy tale that somehow manages to be devoid of sex. As Gitana, the teller of the story states, " ... we will fly from story to story; love to love; and bed to bed. However, if you were to assume this book is just about sex, you would be mistaken. There is no sex in this book, but something even finer: Love!"

Mackie said, "This book is very flamenco and very gypsy because it's an expression of what's in my heart. The message is that the heart has a lot to tell you and you should listen. But it speaks in a whisper, so you should listen very carefully. It should be read after you have taken a hot bath, drank your warm milk and been tucked into your bed with your jammies on. It's a bedtime story that makes you feel good."

Mackie's book is currently available at John's Pennywise Books in the Colonial Promenade shopping center at Burnt Store Road and U.S. 41 and at www.amazon.com. There is a link to the Amazon page on her own Web site, www.thegypsychronicles.com. At John's, Mackie, a wine connoisseur, is giving away a free bottle she made at the Gilded Grape with every sale.

Not content with selling her books impersonally through third parties, Mackie has taken the unusual step of selling her book door to door, complete with gypsy garb and smoking a cigar, her only bad habit.

If she should arrive on your doorstep, give the $14 book a try. Lavishly illustrated with drawings and vintage black and white photographs of gypsies, the book, at 172 pages, is just the right length and leaves you wanting more.

That you shall get. Mackie is already working on a sequel, "Charmed and Dangerous," this tale told by Gitana and Tzigany's daughter, Angicaro, and due out in December.

Read both, and perhaps you will understand the meaning of an old gypsy proverb Mackie quotes on the first page of "The Gypsy Chronicles" -- "The gypsy has three truths: one with me, one with you, and one with herself."

E-mail Gordon Bower at pgherald@sun-herald.com.


By GORDON BOWER

Punta Gorda Herald Editor

Isabel Pantoja: gypsy, widow, queen (and criminal?)

The Olive Press
Latest News - General News
May 16, 2007 at 11:22 AM

As Isabel Pantoja - corruption suspect number 99 on the Operation Malaya list - returns to the stage while on bail, Lisa Tilley charts the rising and falling of a very Spanish survivor.

ON Saturday night, the grandiose plaza mayor in Valladolid began to fill with spectators from the early hours of the afternoon. More than 20,000 fans packed in shoulder to shoulder, bristling with anticipation, while the prime balconies over the square were rented for up to 6,000 euros each, for just a few hours.

Isabel Pantoja was the source of anticipation, the tonadillera (popular singer) who, whether performing or not, has always found herself centre stage in Spain. Just ten days before the Valladolid gig, she was looking somewhat less spectacular while being driven to the local police station. In this performance she played the protagonist in a dark drama of corruption and deceit, spending a night in the cells as part of Operación Malaya – the huge scale crackdown on town planning corruption in Marbella.

But a life of leading roles had prepared Isabel for these most recent performances. In fact, it would be very difficult to find a woman who better encapsulates the numerous stereotypes of the Spanish female than La Pantoja. The persecuted gypsy girl, the formidable flamenco artist, the valiant matador’s wife, the grieving widow in black, the Marbella muse dripping in gold, lavished with corruption money and, ultimately the señora in trouble in the clutches of the arms of the law - Isabel has been every Spanish cliché at some stage in her tumultuous life.

A star is born

Isabel Pantoja was born on August 2, 1956, in the Seville barrio (area) of El Tardón, which skirts La Triana - the neighbourhood itself legendary for cultivating the greatest flamenco music of its day. During the 1950s, flamenco flowed through the very streets of La Triana as surely as the Guadalquivir flowed past it. As the centre of raw talent, the barrio was famous throughout the world for its streets, which rang with tonas, siguirias and soleas.

But the 1960s saw the heart of Triana extracted as Franco ordered the demolition of many of its residences and the exile of Seville’s gypsies to contained high rises away from town, known as Las Tres Mil. Instead of tocando palmas, Las Tres Mil now beats a rhythm of gun shots as rival drug gangs of gypsies fight amongst themselves.

The persecution of gypsies is a time-worn tale into which Isabel was born, but she was also born into the all consuming passion of flamenco. Her father Juan Pantoja, also known as Chiquetete, was part of Las Gaditanos a famous group of the 50s; her mother was a famed flamenco dancer. By the age of 7, she was on the stage at San Fernando theatre in Seville and at the age of 17 she found her big break. A performance in a tablao (flamenco club) in the 1970s was enough to attract Rafael de Leon and Juan Solano, the foremost flamenco composers of the day. From then, her internet adulators explain, the hits came rolling in and she became Spain’s crowned Reina de Copla (Queen of the Copla - the folkloric derivative of flamenco).

Mourning then Muñoz

Soon the queen was ready to collect her next title, as the novia (bride) of Spain. An egalitarian match, Pantoja married her equivalent weight in Spanish clichés: the epitome of machismo and virility in tight trousers - matador Francisco Rivera, known in the ring as Paquirri.

The matador and the gypsy virgin – the film Pedro Almodóvar should have made – danced down the aisle in the wedding of the year of 1983. Nine months later, Pantoja gave birth to a baby boy. Nine months after that, Paquirri was gored to death in Córdoba’s bull ring. Thus, Isabel morphed into her next guise as the viuda de España (the widow of Spain).

After a year of mourning, Pantoja returned to music with one of her most celebrated works, Marinero de Luces. She adopted a little girl, Isabelita, in 1995, but spent 13 years as a single widower, living up to her viuda de España label.

At the age of 40, however, she returned to the world of romance, announcing her relationship with ex-basketball star, Diego Gómez. The relationship faltered but Isabel had met a new lover: a man called Julián Muñoz.

Muñoz, the waiter turned local politician, was appointed by the late Jesús Gil (the spiritual architect of modern day Marbella) to take over responsibilities of public office while Gil lay low, entangled in his own web of corruption. Gil and Muñoz then had a bitter falling out - some believe because Gil despised Pantoja. However, Muñoz triumphed and finally assumed the position of mayor in 2003.

Then, it seemed Pantoja had been lucky in love at last. Hand in hand with Muñoz through the streets of Marbella, living in “Mi Gitana” (Muñoz’s pet name for their home on the exclusive La Pera urbanisation in the Costa del Sol resort), Isabel was selling out in concerts and records and charging 60,000 euros for brief public appearances. They had it all- but, it seemed, they wanted a little bit more and, in Marbella, there is always more to be had by people in high places.

Corruption crackdown

Then the police force opened a file marked Operación Malaya, and began an investigation into a corruption ring in Marbella that has so far seen over 100 people arrested, mainly former councillors and lawyers operating in the town.

One of the first to go to jail was Muñoz. And Mi Gitana has been rather empty since Pantoja’s beau was imprisoned, without bail, for money laundering and defrauding the treasury last July. A doe-eyed Isabel did all she could to retain public sympathy. On the television program Dónde Estás Corazon, she declared she felt she was “a victim” of Muñoz.

The law had other ideas: number ninety nine to be arrested for corrupt activities was the “victim,” Isabel Pantoja. On May 2, Pantoja was escorted from Mi Gitana while Muñoz watched the proceedings unfold from a grainy TV set in prison. The crime? Over two million unexplained euros had been paid into the Muñoz/Pantoja bank accounts without passing by the tax man first. There was also the question of their ill-gotten gains, namely apartment number 105 in the exclusive apartotel Guadalpín, their residence Mi Gitana and, more curiously, 300 cattle. One night in the cells and a 90,000 euro wedge of bail money and Isabel was free again, pending trial.

Ten days later, she embraced the night and 20,000 fans in Valladolid plaza mayor. Her fee for the occasion? The usual 60,000 euros and a rider of fresh coffee, cold sandwiches and a large mirror in which to arrange the frills of her train. It was also reported one spectator in particular was watching via a live connection from Valladolid to Jaén jail, watching La Pantoja, the gypsy, the queen and the criminal and for now, it seems, the survivor.

The three open caves of Gypsy Culture in Granada

By h.b. (Typically Spainish Spain News)
Fri, 24 Nov 2006, 07:19

EDITORIAL COMMENT -It’s said that people are hostile to what they don’t understand, or in some cases simply what they do not know.

For many it’s the origin of racialism and perhaps over the years it could be the reason why Gypsies have been marginalised in Spain.

Therefore any initiative to help open up the mysteries of the Calé community in Spain must be congratulated. Sometimes the opening up comes from inside the community itself.

At the start of the nineties a group of Gypsy women from Granada formed themselves into an association called Romi. One of their main goals has been to set up a museum to explain the culture of the Gypsey woman, and now that goal has been achieved.

Three caves in the Sacromonte area of Granada now hold the very first museum to ‘La Gitana’ in Spain. Help from the regional government in the form of a 350,000 € grant has set up the centre, and the Mayor of Granada, José Torres Hurtado, has said that he hopes the centre will become a new tourist attraction for the city.

The first cave looks at the history of how the gypsies left India and were subjected to particular laws under the Catholic Kings here in Spain. For example a law in 1499 condemned them to a lifetime of slavery. In the 1800’s they were still forbidden to speak in Caló or even wear their traditional dress.

The second cave concentrates on the activities of the women’s group itself and looks at famous gypsies from history. You may be surprised to see references to Charlie Chaplin and Elvis Presley here.

The third cave has details of traditional gypsy health remedies handed down through the generations.

We send our congratulations to the Director of the Romi Association of Gypsey women in Granada, Loli Fernandez.

Asociacion De Mujeres Gitanas Romi
Pl. Rey Badis, S/N
18013 Granada
958 161 278

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