El Tablao

• • Luis Adame
  • El Tablao Flamenco Cordobés and Barcelona
  • Artist
  • 2010:40 Anniversary
  • Flamenco de Cámara
  • 2010: 40th Anniversary
  • Famous Guests

Luis Adame

Barcelona's Tablao Flamenco Cordobes forms part of the small but elite group of tablaos (flamenco dance theatres) that serve as living, vibrant schools of flamenco, following in the fine tradition of Silvero Franconetti's tablao in Seville.
These tablaos act as forums where talent and creativity continue to evolve.
The Tablao Flamenco Cordobes, like so many of these tablaos, is the work of one family of artists, and in particular the father of that family: Luis Adame.
This musician (listed in the first edition of A History of Andalusia) trained at Madrid's Conservatory of Music, where he studied violin, harmony and classical guitar with the maestro Sainzi de la Maza.
Luis was attracted by the extraordinarily expressive force of flamenco. He also had to survive in the depressed postwar Spain. So when international success prompted a late but definitive artistic and social recognition of flamenco in Spain, Luis Adame turned professional.
F.Albéniz and M.de la Falla had created a music that La Argentina, Pastora Imperio, and later Rosario and Antonio would enchant the world with.
The flamenco tablaos of Madrid and Seville were where this movement took off.
Luis Adame, his wife Irene Alba (a renowned dancer) and Alba's sister Milagros (a recognised artist at 17 with her debut in Pastura Imperio's Duende) were all there to experience this explosion.
Performed at La Scala in Milan, Vida Breve (A Brief Life) showed how Luis and his co star Mariemma  evoked a nostalgic air of  nights spent looking for fiestas in Manolo Manzanilla's country inn.
Having passed through all of Madrid's great tablaos, Luis has formed friendships with all the great artists of the period, like Mario Escudero, José Motos (later to become his brother in law), and Paco de Lucía, with whom he was proud to have played Bambino when Paco left the tablao to become a star.
This time was a bohemian time - and a time of great friendships, which endowed all those who experienced it with a truly original artistic outlook. In this atmosphere Luis and his wife formed their own flamenco group and through this overturned their pre conceived artistic ideas and understanding.
At a performance in Salou they were "discovered" by  Andrés Durán and Juan Gaspart i Solves. These two up and coming impresarios offered to enter into a partnership with Luis' group, in order to further develop the Tablao Flamenco Cordobes.
The rest as they say, is history.