So, Mimo would you call this a restaurant?
Actually, the name is called a tablao.
Tablao is a wood plank, and tabloa is the stage made
of wood planks.
By tradition,
tablaos are places where you drink
and you eat.
Tablao is the place where traditionally you see flamenco
in Spain.
Flamenco comes from the south of Spain,
is a mixture of influences from gypsies,
from Arab, because in the south of Spain, there were for many years
a mixture of Moors and Spanish and they live together.
So the tradition, the way of singing, the way of doing things came the music.
When you cry, there were sadness it comes out as music.
It's like the soul in America.
Yeah.
And then coming off the area
and where it comes from is a different rhythm and a different mood.
Wow. The rhythm defines, I think, the style,
and the style defines the dance.
That is originally music.
You feel it physically when they're hitting wood,
but you definitely it feels like expression like, I mean, their dancing.
I think it's a personal expression of the collective memory.
Tell me more about Carmen.
Carmen Amaya was a gypsy girl who was born
in Barcelona, in a place
that at the time was very poor, it was a slum.
Her father was a guitarist.
He played in bars,
making a living late at night, just going to little taverns.
She always went with him and she was completely self-taught.
She became known, recognized as a good dancer,
invited to dance in theaters very early age.
This is why we named this place Tablao Carmen because she did perform
in a little courtyard we have at the back.
Wow. With her family for the inauguration of the Spanish
village in 1929, and then she was invited to perform in Paris.
From Paris
because the Civil War started in Spain.
And instead of coming into our whole country, they went to Portugal
and they sail immediately to Buenos Aires is where they had a contract.
And there they sail again to New York.
With great success in Carnegie Hall, she made movies
that she was invited to dance in the White House by President Roosevelt.
They flew her, actually, in a little plane,
they pick her up in New York, they flew her to Washington. Wow.
She played in the embassies.
She met Marlon Brando, Fred Astaire,
Picasso, and Orson Welles.
No kidding, no way.
She led a company of 40 people at some point
traveling all over America and South America. Wow.
Always with the family.
They didn't even know how to write, but they knew how to dance.
Yeah. To make money.
How to be happy.
Wow. I mean, what an incredible story.
To have one of a kind.
So did your grandmother help?
How does she come into this?
Carmen got married very late.
She was leading the company and the whole family,
but she 71 non gypsy guitarist, arrived to the company,
called Juan Antonio a widow, and they married within weeks.
Whoa.
And she wanted to come back to Barcelona to get married.
So they did.
And they married in Barcelona,
and they bought a house in the north east of Barcelona in the Coast Brava.
And when they landed there in 61,
they met the locals.
Among them my mother's side of the family,
and they all became very good friends.
She had small kidneys
and they never grew, and at the time, dialysis didn't exist.
And she passed away.
Finally, my mother married Juan Antonio Agüero, Carmen's husband and widow.
Wow. My mother, independently from my dad
decided to make this place because she's from Barcelona and she loves flamenco.
And they were very good friends Carmen and my mother.
They liked each other a lot.
Wow, and so you are keeping the tradition going.
Yeah, I was here at the very beginning as
I was in my twenties, and then I got married and left.
I'd been abroad 20 years, but I've been back four now.
Now, it's only my mother and I,
so my mother is the cricket in my head saying how it has to be.
People like it
the way it is, you have an impression of what is good flamenco.
Yeah, I mean, it's an experience.
What's happening with flamenco now?
Where is it headed?
There are good academies of dance for flamenco.
These are super good schools of Music.
You have the kids in the street
learning how to dance.
We invited them to perform here.
They grow with their willingness to be on a stage like this, in our tabloa.
There are two singers, one box, one guitar, and two dancers.
And they do the most amazing performance you can imagine.
High class flamenco.
I'm just glad I got a chance to
to see it and see the creativity happening in the space, and keep keep it going.
I think your mom's going to make you.
But yeah, yeah, it's fantastic.
Wow, thanks for sharing that story.
It's fantastic. Thank you for coming.