“The Banks are Our Stages”: Flo6x8 and Flamenco Performance as Protest in Southern Spain

Abstract

In May 2011, a widespread protest movement known as 15M emerged in Spain, emphasizing the sustained and purposeful occupation of public spaces. Based in Seville, the performance collective Flo6x8 protests financial and political malfeasance in Spain by converting corporate banks into flamenco performance and recording spaces. This article explores how Flo6x8 generates new physical and conceptual spaces for political expression and protest in Spain’s 15M Movement through their pioneering use of digital media, flash mobs, and flamenco performance. Flo6x8 temporarily converts spaces of the opposition into oppositional spaces and channels public outrage into powerful and irreverent productions. The group appropriates enduring symbols and associations of flamenco, including poverty and alienation, while simultaneously challenging notions of where and when performances of flamenco should happen. Drawing from literature in performance studies, theory of social movements, critical urban theory, and ethnographies of precarity and austerity in southern Europe, this article considers how visual, corporeal, and spatial elements are critical factors that shape the meanings of flamenco performance and protest in twenty-first-century Spain.

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Acknowledgments

Portions of this article were presented at the 2014 meeting of the Southern California and Hawaii chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology; at an invited talk for the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at UC Berkeley (April 2014); and in March 2017 for the Ethnographic Methods lecture series in the Division of Anthropology at California State University, Fullerton. I am truly indebted to a number of family, friends, and colleagues, including Francisco Aix Gracia, Alicia González Sánchez, Jesús Sousa, Luis “Wi” Ángel Hernández Nieto, Alberto Martínez Sánchez, Jerry Kay, Ed Pearl, Alberto Águilar, Cristina Rodríguez, Reyes Velasco, José Luis Cabezas Serrano, and Hallie Brown. I would like to thank the members of Flo6x8 for sharing their art and experience with me. I am also grateful to Sarah Grant, Neal Matherne, and Carol Silverman for their valuable feedback. I thank both Sarah and Alexandra Saum-Pascual for giving me the opportunity to share this work at their respective universities. Finally, I wish to thank Jonathan Ritter, René Lysloff, Deborah Wong, and Walter Clark for their mentorship and support.

Notes

1. All translations (including this one) were completed by the author.

2. This term originally comes from the Russian word for a three-horse carriage. In the context of the recent European financial crisis it refers jointly to the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This triumvirate monitors countries with extreme economic issues that have received loans from the European Union and the IMF. Moreover, since 2010 the juridical presence and impact of the Troika has been acute in nations like Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain.

3. For the video of this action, see “FLO6x8 en el Parlamento—Acortando distancias-,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxHBWmVRB8A. Accessed 5 July 2014.

4. As of 8 December 2017, Flo6x8 had uploaded 41 videos that had accumulated 2,730,209 views. The number of views for each video varies widely: 14 videos have more than 25,000 views; seven have more than 50,000 views; four have more than 100,000 views; two have more than 500,000 views; and one video has more than a million views. These numbers do not include videos that were reposted by other users on YouTube. For a complete listing of the groups videos, visit “flo6x8,” http://www.youtube.com/user/flo6x8/videos.

5. The name “15M” is taken from the date that the protest movement first emerged: 15May 2011. Subsequent protests are referred to in a similar fashion (e.g., 15O for a protest on 15 October 2011).

6. Indignado, which means indignant or angry, refers to members of the 15M Movement in Spain. The term itself derives from Stéphane Hessel influential manifesto entitled Indignez-vous!, which Marion Duvert translated into English as Time for Outrage! in 2011 (Hessel).

7. For more information on the conditions faced by cantaoras in the middle to late twentieth century, see Chuse (91–116) and Cruces Roldán (“El Tiempo”).

8. The term cafés cantante, literally “singing café,” refers to the type of venue that emerged in the late nineteenth century where flamenco was first performed for large paying audiences. The prevalence of these cafés led to the professionalization of flamenco performance.

9. This group includes everyone from lesser-known artists to the renowned guitarist Paco del Gastor (see Curao 164) and famous singers like José Mercé (https://elpais.com/ccaa/2012/02/10/catalunya/1328904063_406298.html. Accessed 7 July 2017) and Enrique Morente (http://sevilla.abc.es/20100921/sevilla/enrique-morente-flamenco-siempre-201009210712.html. Accessed 7 July 2017). Mercé is referring more to the difficulties of sustaining a vibrant flamenco scene and community without much institutional support.

10. In one of the latest measures, from April 2017, Spain’s unemployment level was 17.8%. For this and other recent statistics on European unemployment, see “Unemployment Statistics.”

11. This information comes from an October 2013 study by Cáritas Española, which is the Catholic Church’s official association of charitable organizations in Spain. For results from the study, see “Crece.”

12. For more on links between Occupy Wall Street and 15M, see Castañeda.

13. A large number of newly minted lawyers in Spain are being exploited, and more than 30% of them make less than 500 euros per month. For more information, see Abad.

14. During my research in 2012, for example, spending on education was cut by 2.2 billion euros, a reduction of 22% from 2011. Healthcare was cut by 3.9 billion euros, and employment programs were cut by 1.2 billion euros nationally, in 2012. These figures do not even account for the mandatory cuts of at least 7.5 billion euros that regional governments were forced to legislate that same year (López).

15. Naturally, such regressions are experienced at multiple levels. Sabaté and Narotzky have illustrated how they impact personal and professional trajectories.

16. This was one of more than 950 demonstrations held in more than 80 countries on 15 October 2011. These protests were united in their active opposition to austerity, neoliberal economic programs, and the vast fiscal and social inequities that they have generated. The two largest protests were in Madrid and Barcelona, with attendance totals of 500,000 and 400,000, respectively.

17. This study explores the influence and discourses of the 15M Movement through an analysis of newspaper content, as well as Facebook and Twitter posts and discussions.

18. This is similar to the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street movements, in which participants corresponded heavily through online social media networks.

19. Feinberg’s essay also discusses the history of another related movement from 2007, known as okupa, in which activists and community members occupied “derelict and under-utilized buildings to build community and resist real estate speculation” (148–49).

20. Members of Flo6x8 were specifically concerned with the possibility that the media would disproportionately represent individual performers at the expense of the collective.

21. In accordance with the wishes of my friends and interlocutors, I will be referring to participants in Flo6x8 by their artistic pseudonyms, as opposed to their birth names.

22. Cyberpunk is a dystopian and postmodern form that is based on futurism, digital media, and resistance to authority.

23. I inquired about these pictures to several group members, all of whom were unwilling to disclose their methods for obtaining such photographs and footage.

24. I became aware of these developments through numerous interviews with group members.

25. Video of a PAH action from July 2013 can be accessed online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v78W83AdfQA. Accessed 10 December 2017. Video from an Enmedio bank action can be accessed online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjZwwM-voKU. Accessed 17 December 2017.

26. Marbella is a coastal city in south-central Andalusia that houses many luxury resorts and yachts. It is a popular destination for tourists from northern Europe and also for celebrities, aristocrats, and wealthy people from around the world.

27. Flamenco-derived rumba is a popular musical genre in the world music sphere. Artists like the Gipsy Kings and Strunz & Farah have carved out very successful careers based on this musical form.

28. The video of this action can be accessed online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72jYiDLKa1 k. Accessed 15 September 2011.

29. In recent years, flamenco dancers around the world have organized performances in public spaces as a form of entertainment and often as part of local festivals and initiatives. In three recent Bienal festivals in Seville (2012, 2014, and 2016), for example, the official YouTube pages for the festivals have presented choreographies by Rafaela Carrasco, Pastora Galván, and Farruquito. These videos were uploaded in the summer months as tutorials for flamenco dancers around the world to present in the fall of each corresponding year. These sessions were all designated as flash-mob choreographies, even though the performances that materialized would be described more accurately as publicly staged presentations where audience members are in attendance to support their talented friends and family. In other words, the shock that flash mobs were originally intended to produce (among random onlookers) is noticeably absent. Moreover, since these are often publicly sanctioned performances, the rebellious component is practically eliminated. Ironically, the most famous flash-mob video associated with a bank in Spain (with more than 75 million views) was coordinated by the bank itself for an advertisement. On 19 May 2012, Sabadell Bank staged a “flash mob” featuring a local symphony orchestra and several choirs to celebrate the 130th anniversary of the bank's founding and to pay homage to the institution’s birthplace. The video of this action can be accessed online: “Som Sabadell flashmob—BANCO SABADELL,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBaHPND2QJg. Accessed 10 October 2013. While all of these acts can easily be characterized as “unusual,” they are scarcely oppositional to the social orders of their surroundings.

30. The video of this action can be accessed online: “Holograms for Freedom,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jwmi6CguY0. Accessed 15 October 2015.