Good day dear Hive community, first of all I would like to welcome you all to my contribution and hope you had a day that was full of positive experiences! In this article, I would like to talk a little about Spanish culture and hope you can expand your knowledge a little.
In Spain, dance has an important tradition and is culturally strongly anchored and there is also the right music for the right dance and in the different regions different currents have developed over the centuries. In this painting by the artist Otto Hellmeier (1908 - 1996) you can see how a dancer practices the well-known flamenco, which originally comes from the region Andalusia and is widely practiced today. In the other painting he painted a portrait of a Spanish woman and both works were painted on oil and the Spanish culture comes out well in my opinion and Hellmeier was inspired by his travels in Spain where he was very interested in culture and integrated it into his works. In total, there are several hundred different dances that are known in Spain and all are very individual and you can't speak of a uniform style but of a wide variety where there is something for pretty much everyone. For thousands of years, former inhabitants of Spain such as the Celts, Arabs or Romans also had a great influence on Spanish art, culture or history and contributed a large part to the diversity of the different styles. In probably no other country so many influences from other cultures come together as in Spain and it is interesting how a colorful interplay comes together and the first dances in Spain are also strongly connected with mythology and were celebrated to celebrate different gods. Some dances were divided into different social classes and some dances were not welcome in noble classes at the time and there was a huge division when it comes to art and there were epochs where this culture rather moved into the background, but did not disappear from the scene.
Towards the end of the Middle Ages, this culture spread more and more through Europe and quickly became popular in other countries and it was also about expressing symbolism with the right body language and in interaction with the right music, it was considered relatively open, communicative and was known to create a cheerful atmosphere. Later, the Spanish dances were also spread more and more all over the world and, as in other parts of the world, the artists in Spain did not have it very easy and during the dictatorship of the Spanish head of state Francisco Franco (1892 - 1975) it happened that some dancers and musicians were oppressed and it came to the fact that they could no longer pursue their passion. As also mentioned above, some differences of opinions have already arisen in history when it comes to culture and this also led to the fact that there was often too much oppression and stigmatization due to the different divisions of the dances and the social classes. Typical characteristics Spanish dances are the abstract and often colorful costumes that the dancers wear and are often strapped with numerous things such as ribbons or other things that are supposed to attract the attention of the viewer. The dancers are usually accompanied by atmospheric and lively music which creates a lively and fiery mood through the different frequencies and the guitar belongs to the most popular instrument. Spanish dances are often confused with those from Latin America and the typical ones from Spain include the flamenco, bolero, jaleo, jota, the Basque dances and many more and I hope in this post I was able to write about this topic in a well-structured manner.
Thank you very much for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about Spanish culture! I captured pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens!