- Live.Coronavirus Spain today, live breaking news
- Flamenco.Casa Patas, field of dreams
- Opinion: Casa Patas
Rosalía's first performance in Madrid, for which 30 tickets were sold, was at Casa Patas, the central tablao that has decided to make a parenthesis in its 32 years of flamenco in the absence of guiris, its fundamental audience, and to avoid " the precipice "of a bankruptcy.
Foreign tourists are 75% of its public which makes it "completely unfeasible" to reopen its doors, even if phase 2 of de-escalation after the coronavirus pandemic allows it, which Madrid could enter on June 8, Martín Guerrero explains to Efe. , director of Casa Patas, one of the nearly 20 tablaos in the capital.
They will make "an orderly closure" instead of dropping "off the precipice of bankruptcy," and thus prevent their 24 employees, now in an ERTE, from going to work without compensation: "They would be very unattended; we are going to pay all workers, suppliers and companies, "he says.
To do so, the company "will have to go into debt" because it has already exhausted its reserves, more than 200,000 euros: " Reopening now would be like swimming in a storm that is going to last long enough to end up drowning," he compares.
"It is a catastrophe, but I am not 'the wicked one' who closes it. The orderly closing allows us to leave the essentials there. It has caused the stupor of many people but now it would not be logical to open. They offer me to do 'crowdfunding' but the way to to fight is to close and when it becomes viable again , then to make an effort, "he details.
Waiting for better times
They will keep the premises, owned by the company, and will keep everything "as it is waiting for better times": "Maybe in a year or a year and a half we can reopen," he wishes.
Despite the fact that Casa Patas has an important business dedicated also to the national public, to companies and weekend events, its "heart" is the foreigners who now, "and surely for many months", will not be able "or will" travel to Spain.
"No private flamenco infrastructure for commercial purposes - a hundred in Spain - would exist without that guiri that some seem to despise so much," says Guerrero, son of the founder of the space.
"One of the biggest injustices in our sector is how the foreign public is denigrated, which is also exquisite and with a flamenco fondness that gives twenty thousand turns to the national scene . Flamenco had not developed and would not be what it is if there were no counted on the interest of the tourist ", he adds.
The tablaos, Guerrero predicts, "are going to close all of them in the next two months, precisely because we are losing those guiris. Our closing has made a great impression on the cultural environment but this is going to be like a game of dominoes."
They will close its main hall and its restaurant, through which more than two million people have passed in 32 years, but they will reopen their Foundation, on the upper floors of the Casa Patas premises, where they will continue the guitar, dance and singing classes that are held. They have been teaching since 2000, although not the performances on the García Lorca stage.
"The paradox is that we will not reopen that stage because the public there is national, that is to say that in summer it goes abroad. We have never scheduled performances in these months. We will see in September, " he says.
Casa Patas was born as a tavern, founded in 1984 by his father, a construction businessman who died in 2013, and in 1988 became the tablao through which, thanks to the management of the promoter of Antonio Benamargo, all the greats have passed of the singing, dancing and guitar of Spain, including Camarón de la Isla, who presented an album there, or Paco de Lucía, who occupied one of the tables in his restaurant every Friday.
In the tablao, with capacity for 140 people -90 in García Lorca-, Miguel Poveda sang at the age of 15; Rosalía made her "incredible" debut, before releasing her first album, "Los Ángeles" ; has sung Niño de Elche, Rocío Márquez, Arcángel, Niña Pastori ...
They have collected the witness of "historical" such as Chocolate, Terremoto, Chano Lobato, the Moneo, Raimundo Amador and all the new flamenco, Diego el Cigala, Mario Maya, Joaquín Cortés, Sara Baras, Israel Galvá, Riqueni, Tomatito and the Habichuela , among many others.
"We don't want to dismantle anything. The future will have to be with that place, with those tables, with those paintings ...", the set of 120 different proposals each year with an average of 400 artists.
In the meantime, they are preparing an "online" platform of training activity at an international level that will give artists, who "have been left in a very bad situation" a chance to work, and will continue to offer their rooms for private events "and even -announces - some filming. "
In accordance with the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more- Spain
- Rosalia
- Madrid
- Israel
- LOC
- Coronavirus
- Covid 19
EconomyAlmeida charges Sánchez after Bildu "ripping" him of unlocking the municipal surplus: "I feel offended"
Covid-19Argentina wants Pedro Sánchez's advice ... so that football returns, while Almeida advises Buenos Aires
Justice Complaint in the Supreme against the Government on behalf of more than 3,000 families killed by Covid-19