Lorca y el Flamenco _ Rito y Geografïa del cante Flamenco _ English subtitles

Rito y Geografïa del cante Flamenco, vol. 10, chapter 2
broadcast 95 : "LORCA Y EL FLAMENCO" - 24 September 1973

1. Manuel Cano (gtr) : Zorongo gitano
2. Pepe de Marchena & Benito de Mérida : Los cuatro muleros
3. Pucherete (vcl) & Antonio Villanueva : Zorongo
4. Amos Rodrigues Rey & Manolo Brenes : "Bulerías"

Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca, was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. He was born on 5 June 1898, in Fuente Vaqueros, a small town a few miles west of Granada, southern Spain. His father, Federico García Rodríguez, was a landowner with a farm in the fertile vega surrounding Granada and a comfortable villa in the heart of the city. García Rodríguez saw his fortunes rise with a boom in the sugar industry. García Lorca's mother, Vicenta Lorca Romero, was a teacher and gifted pianist. In 1909, when the boy was 11, his family moved to the city of Granada. For the rest of his life, he maintained the importance of living close to the natural world, praising his upbringing in the country. Throughout his adolescence he felt a deeper affinity for theatre and music than literature, training fully as a classical pianist, his first artistic inspirations arising from the scores of Debussy, Chopin and Beethoven. Later, with his friendship with composer Manuel de Falla Spanish folklore became his muse. At the Residencia de estudiantes in Madrid García Lorca befriended Manuel de Falla, Luis Buñuel andSalvador Dalí and many other creative artists who were, or would become, influential across Spain.

In June 1929, García Lorca travelled to America with Fernando de los Rios. They stayed mostly in New York City, where Rios started a lecture tour and García Lorca enrolled at Columbia University School of General Studies. In 1931, García Lorca was appointed as director of a university student theatre company, Teatro Universitario la Barraca (The Shack). He commented: "Outside of Madrid, the theatre, which is in its very essence a part of the life of the people, is almost dead, and the people suffer accordingly, as they would if they had lost their two eyes, or ears, or a sense of taste. We [La Barraca] are going to give it back to them". His experiences of travelling through impoverished rural Spain and New York, (particularly amongst the disenfranchised African American population), transformed him into a passionate advocate of the theatre of social action.[19] He wrote "The theatre is a school of weeping and of laughter, a free forum, where men can question norms that are outmoded or mistaken and explain with living example the eternal norms of the human heart".

While touring with La Barraca, García Lorca wrote his now best-known plays, the Rural Trilogy of Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding), Yerma and La Casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of Bernarda Alba), which all rebelled against the norms of bourgeois Spanish society.[19] He called for a rediscovery of the roots of European theatre and the questioning of comfortable conventions such as the popular drawing room comedies of the time. His work challenged the accepted role of women in society and explored taboo issues of homoeroticism and class. García Lorca wrote little poetry in this last period of his life, declaring in 1936, “theatre is poetry that rises from the book and becomes human enough to talk and shout, weep and despair.”

García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He was murdered by fascists forces during the Spanish Civil War.