Duende

On why I love flamenco (and why you should too)

The dancer’s task is unenviable. She is standing in front of a group of mixed ­ability, mostly middle-aged, English people, ­preparing to teach us a dance.

We are gathered in a finca near the town of Níjar in Almería, the dancer’s home province. There is, she tells us, a particular form of flamenco called taranta that was popular among the miners of the region, full of the particular kind of sorrow, exhaustion, and regret that accompanies hard manual labour.

This sits somewhat uneasily with the scent of oleander and jasmine floating in from the garden but, within an hour, we are all cheering wildly, having mastered some very basic clapping rhythms and dance steps.

Nothing about the history of flamenco is straightforward.