",.. she now stamps on the ground, and placing her hands on her hips, she moves quickly to the right and left, advancing and retreating in a sidelong direction. Her glances become now more fierce and fiery...she commences clapping her hands...uttering words of an unknown tongue, to a strange and uncouth tune...she springs, she bounds, and at every bound she is a yard above the ground." Thus described George Borrow, in his hook "The Zincali"' the gypsy dance of 1843. This is the precursor of the modern Flamenco dance, and some of this early feeling can be seen in the dancing of the children in the 1963 film Los Tarantos starring Carmen Amaya with Antonio Gades. The dance of the juerga, however, is not what one usually sees in the world of commercial Flamenco. True, Cante Jondo can be danced, with duende and the gracia of the "pena negra" etched on the dancer's face and governing his or her movements and pasture. But most Bailaores dance to lighter forms of Flamenco, such as Tangos and Zapateadas (which comes from the Spanish word for "shoe").
As a soloist, the dancer is responsible for keeping with the comps, either through pitos and palmas (finger-snapping and handclapping) or footwork, The Zapateado is generally a showcase for footwork; the Tango is one of the rare examples of a dance that translates also to good recorded Flamenco.
Flamenco dancing in its best form contains a combination of finger and hand
movements (generally in men with both arms raised, in women moving in a
serpentine fashion), upper torso bent back to roughly a 45 degree angle, and
deliberate foot movement, Flamenco duets, featuring a man and a woman, usually
have all the fire and emotion of a duel, the dancers' eyes locked upon each
other, the aggressiveness passing back and forth between partners as their
abrupt yet comp?s-based strides compliment each move in the upper torso.
Castanets are almost never used, as they drown out the comps, pitos, and footwork of the dancer, and
make it difficult to hear the guitar player. The introduction of castanets to Flamenco were most probably added during the last decade of the Nineteenth
Century to give added tourist appeal to the emerging art of Commercial Flamenco.
Castanets are never brought to the juerga.