National Geographic: The Soul of Spain Page #3

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who seek new lives in big cities

Spain's new constitution

carefully spells out the equality of

opportunity for men and women

After high school

Alicia hopes to join the growing ranks

of working women

"Then after a couple of years

when I've mastered that job

I'll study business management

and after that join a big company

I'd work my way to the top

and eventually have my own company

As a businesswoman

I'd travel

I'd like to travel a lot in my work

Today, many women are entering

the ranks of leadership

in government

politics, and commerce

The unemployment rate of women is

twice that of men

But like Alicia

they pursue an alluring dream

Spain's greatest contemporary poet

Garcia Lorca

described flamenco as deeper than

the heart of the one creating it

and the voice singing it

It comes from the first sob

and the first kiss

Flamenco was born in Andalucia

when Arabic and Spanish music mingled

with the songs of the Jews

The gypsies were to adopt it and

in their wanderings

carry it throughout Spain

Francisca Sadornil

La Tati as she is known

was born here in Madrid

She learned flamenco dancing

from gypsies

married a gypsy in her youth

and remains among the rare outsiders

accepted by them artistically and

socially

A professional dancer from the age of 12

La Tati has dedicated her life

to flamenco

And flamenco has taken La Tati

from a working-class neighborhood

to the concert stages of the world

She reminisces

I can't remember a time

when I didn't dance

I was born on Toledo Street

and there all the neighbors

were Andalucians and gypsies

At No.5 of the Plaza de la Cascorro

was Quica

the dancing professor of Seville

I went to Quica when I was about seven

I never paid for a dancing class

because there was not money

in my family

I slept at the academy on a mattress

between chairs

I helped Quica clean the academy

and did the errands

and this way I learned to dance

Today, she passes her knowledge to

a new generation

She reflects on teaching

With recording

singers and movie actors can leave

their way of singing and playing music

but with dancing it's a little more

difficult

If you don't do it through teaching

you can't leave a school of dance

This is why I like teaching very much

La Tati is highly sought as a teacher

But as an artist

she gets her deepest satisfaction

from performance

My life is shaped on the stage

All that I feel or live for,

everything

all my suffering and all my glory

all my life is on the stage

She rehearses for a tour that will

take her to France

The quality of flamenco

is to get out of a difficult situation

of crying and of sorrow

to get into an explosion of happiness

and a feeling born in the soul

and the heart

Flamenco is an expression of the soul

The guitar is the instrument of Spain

In the working-class neighborhood

where he grew up

Arcangel Ferbabdez has hand-crafted

guitars for 36 years

I had my first job at 11 as a

furniture maker

Later I became fond of playing the guitar

I started to play flamenco

Then I met a great maestro of guitar

making

one of the best in the world

Since I had found that the artistic

environment was not much to my liking

I found myself turning to guitar making

Only fine

imported woods are used to create

the body of the guitar

They are carefully heated and shaped

as the craftsman gradually brings the

instrument to life

To make a good handcrafted guitar you

need at least one month

The difference between handcrafted

and infactory guitars are many

starting with materials

The materials we use are quite expensive

You must have knowledge of the trade

and put live into your work

For me that is the secret for making

a good guitar

Nothing else

Signed and numbered by the craftsman

a finished instrument may cost from two

to ten thousand dollars

Through this artist's expression

the guitar gives voice to

the Spanish soul

During the decades of Franco's

dictatorship

the Catholic Church was able to

legally enforce its rigid doctrines

Even between engaged couples

premarital contact was forbidden

by the strictures of traditional

courtship

Among the middle and upper classes

a single woman

could not go out without a female

chaperone to watch over her

Today young woman go out alone

and party at bars until 4 a. m

Agatha Ruiz de la Prada is among the

contemporary Spanish women

who now define their own roles in society

Agatha lives in a quiet Madrid suburb

with her son

Tristan, and the boy's father

Her seemingly bourgeois home life

is not quite what it appears

My mother and father separate

when I have more or less 12

And my mother goes to live to Barcelona

So for me it was very nice

because I have two cities and two houses

and I have always the liberty of

choosing one or the other

I have never believed in marriage

Liberty is very important for me

and marriage is something that

I don't like

Ruiz de la Prada is a designer

and business woman

These dolls, whose costumes

she creates, sold over a million

in Spain alone last year

She also designs highly original clothing

When I was little

I wanted to be a painter

One thing that I have ever hate

is the big distance between a picture on

a wall and the way that people live

I think that you

when you like some picture

you must wear it. No?

And you must eat with it

and you must sleep with it

You must put it in your life

No?

Humorous and deliberately outrageous

her design has brought her international

recognition

The impulse behind them

in fact, springs from

a traditionally Spanish attitude

that of the rugged individualist

Barcelona

Spanish's largest seaport the nation's

second city

and industrial powerhouse

Barcelona is also the center of a rich

and highly original artistic tradition

This legacy is evident everywhere...

in a mosaic pavement created

by the great Joan Miro...

A design created by Picasso

in his self-imposed exile

during the Franco years...

and the undulating curves of a facade

by Antonio Gaudi

A genius who used the sinuous forms

of nature

as the vocabulary for his architecture

Gaudi was dubbed visionary-and madman

Son of a coppersmith

he was modest and self-effacing

refused by the one woman to whom he

proposed

he would dedicate his life exclusively

to architecture and God

He maintained

God continues creation through man

In 1884 he began work

in the Sagrada Familia the Expiatory

Temple of the Holy Family

It would be his masterpiece

But in 1926

returning from evening church services

to sleep in his workshop

Gaudi was struck by a streetcar

Three days later he died

Thousands followed the funeral cortege

to his final resting place

the crypt of his unfurnished basilica

Today, Gaudi's vision continues

to take shape above him

From the beginning

construction has been funded

by public donations

Only some 50 artists and craftsmen

are employed

Architect Jordi Bonet

like his father a specialist

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