When I see a dance performance on a stage or on the street I especially enjoy seeing how much dancing means to the performers. For them it’s not a hobby, it’s life. Everything they do is surrounded around expressing themselves with their bodies. For these dancers, what they do is spiritual. The only film for me that has been able to capture this sense of spirit in dance is Tony Gatlif’s film Vengo (2000).
Flamenco Dancers (creative commons)
Vengo is a film entirety about the spirit of dance. The story follows Caco, a proud passionate man who’s the head of his gypsy family and neighborhood. As the leader of his clan he spends most of his time in a power struggle with the neighboring gypsy group. In addition, his beloved daughter Pepa has just recently passed putting him in a state of unbearable grief throughout the film. Besides the plot of the film, Gatlif discovers and explores the flamenco culture that runs throughout the community and the characters lives. Everyone knows how to dance and sing flamenco; and it’s not disingenuous. The dance is improvisation and spontaneity; it’s about expressing the soul and spirit through the movements.
The idea of spirit is explored throughout the film through the exploration of flamenco culture. This idea can be expressed through the idea of duende. Duende is an incredibly difficult concept to pinpoint and I owe all I know about to my older sister Laura who is a professional flamenco dancer. According to her, duende is a heightened state of emotion in which spirit possesses the flamenco dancer. It is in this trance like state in which the dancer does their best work authentically expressing themselves through the movements and music. It also said that duende is state in which one becomes closer to reaching a higher state of being (essentially closer to God). The characters in Vengo explore the rich and beautiful concept of duende. You can also tell that the idea of duende is of interest to the director because he explores it through other cultures besides flamenco.
One quick scene in the film explains how important duende is for people within flamenco culture. In this moment of the film, three of Caco’s closest friends (who happen to be flamenco musicians) manage to find duende in the most unusual place. During a walk outside, one of the characters suddenly stops beside a tree; he begins walking towards the tree not stopping until he forces himself into the brush of the trees branches. His friends stop and follow him into the tree almost quietly understanding what he’s serarching for. The man listens to the leaves of the tree swaying with the wind. Finally he exclaims “It seems like this tree has duende”. Almost instantly he begins singing with the rythym of the wind and of the nature swaying around him, he has tapped into this spirit of duende. We see here that duende or spirit is everywhere for these people. Here we see duende as a natural thing that occurs outside of the realm of the film. It is everywhere in the world.
Gatlif also explores this idea of duende within the characters and almost shows it as something everyone aims to achieve. One scene in particular expresses how Caco (the main character) becomes possessed with duende. The scene begins with the three elderly women that take care of the town watering Caco’s flower garden. The two of them comment noisily about the dying garden. One of the women comments on how it’s a “soulless garden that is fading away”. This is a complete break away from the scene discussed before where Caco’s three friends find duende in the nature outside of the church. Right away in this scene, Caco is being identified with the withering garden; his soul and spirit are fading away. The scene then shows us Caco who is still passed out cold on the bed in deep sleep. In the distance we hear church bells dinging and almost instantly a breeze lifts into the room causing the hanging emblem to spin in circles. Suddenly we are brought into Caco’s dream where he sees three Sufi women traditionally dressed performing the Sufi spinning dance. As the dancing get’s more frantic, Caco tosses back and forth in his sleep, physically disturbed by his dreams. Suddenly as if out of nowhere, Caco’s dreams become much more abstract. The physical shots become complex and layered through the use superimposition. A sufi dancer whirls in the background, superimposed on top of that are images of significant symbols in his life; the virgin mary that protects his daughter’s grave, the face of his favorite family members, etc. What we see here is Caco experiencing duende. The multilayered vivid images heavily contrast the fading soulless garden mentioned before. Gatlif uses chaotic editing techniques to visually represent this heightened state of emotion.
Sufi Whirling (creative commons)
For those of you who don’t know about this traditional Sufi dance known as dkhir, it is a type of meditation practiced by members of the Sufi religion. In this dance, they whirl around in circles hoping for the chance to reach a higher state of being. As the spinning goes faster and faster, the spinners get more ecstatic and ultimately evolve into a trance like state which is described as the path to getting closer to God. For me, this is very similar to the flamenco idea of duende. Both cultural groups are essentially reaching for the same thing; a chance to arrive at this trance like state that brings them closer to some kind of higher spirit. Everyone is looking for this spirit to lift them up and take them to a higher place away from the struggle and heartbreak of their daily lives. In the end, isn’t this what everyone is looking for?
Comments