National Geographic: The Soul of Spain Page #6

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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

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