At a terrible nightmare time which screams out for flamenco poetry to make sense of it, we are all in solitary confinement. But just as the flamenco world will have to adapt to the new reality, so will the rest of us.

We are all now discovering the true value of those who perform the most essential tasks in society, whose work was previously taken for granted. And hopefully, we are also getting too addicted to the Endorphins produced by helping and caring to go back to fighting each other for survival. If we can adapt that far, flamenco will be fine – when the tears have dried.

Like everyone else, all Flamenco Express performances have been cancelled. And realistically, 2021 seems the soonest we can expect to appear again.

Normally, this could be written off to experience, and Life would Go On. However, a year is a long time, and flamenco feeds on intimate contact with the audience and between artists. It does not thrive in captivity, or with every venue closed. But it does thrive on community spirit.

Freeing flamenco again presumably means rediscovering what freedom means. But flamenco always helped us do that, producing some of the free-est human spirits ever. So it should be second nature.

Either way, we have to make the effort, not least to repay the sacrifices made by so many.
Rob Kenyon