Flamenco, Spanish dance and sevillanas: what is the difference?

Ask most visitors to Spain what flamenco is and you will get a description of a woman in a polka-dot dress at a feria. That is sevillanas. Ask what Spanish dance is and you will get flamenco. The three are related, they share roots and they borrow from each other constantly, but they are not the same discipline, and knowing which one you actually want to learn saves you a term of frustration.

At the Rocío Pozo Dance School in Telde this comes up in almost every first conversation, so here is the clearest version we can give.

Flamenco

An art of expression, not of display

Flamenco is the one people picture and the one people misunderstand. It grew out of Andalusia from a mix of Roma, Andalusian, Moorish and Jewish influences, and for most of its history it had no schools and no academies: it was learned in families and in courtyards.

Technically it is extremely demanding — footwork used as percussion, arm work born in the back, a rigorous posture — but the technique is always subordinate to feeling. A technically perfect flamenco that says nothing is a failure by flamenco's own standards. That is why it takes years and why it is worth them.

Its rhythmic cycles are complex: 12 beats in the soleá, the alegrías and the bulería, four in tangos and tientos, with asymmetric accents that take a long time to internalise.

Spanish classical dance

The academic sister

Spanish dance — escuela bolera and the stylised repertoire — is the academic, theatrical branch. It emerged in the late 19th century and consolidated in the 20th, and it takes flamenco material to the level of great stage dance: ballet technique in the legs, castanets played to concert standard, choreography built for a theatre rather than a courtyard.

If flamenco is a language spoken from the gut, Spanish classical dance is that language written down and set to a score.

Sevillanas

A folk dance, not a flamenco palo

This is the correction most worth making: sevillanas are not a flamenco palo in the strict sense. They are a regional folk dance, descended from the old Castilian seguidilla, that has been "flamenco-ised" over time in dress and styling.

They have four fixed coplas, always in the same order, with a set structure of steps, crossings and careos. Unlike flamenco, which is danced solo, sevillanas are social: you dance them with someone, or in a group.

Musically they are much more accessible — a simple triple metre, close to a fast waltz, far easier to follow than a 12-beat cycle. That is why they can be learned in months rather than years, and why they are what fills the ferias.

So which should you learn?

It depends on what you want from it

If you want to enjoy yourself at a feria or a romería within a few months, and to be able to join in rather than watch: sevillanas. In a term you will have the first coplas and you will use them.

If you want to learn to dance — technique, compás, expression, something you will still be working on in five years: flamenco. It is slower and harder, and it gives back more.

If you want the full academic route with castanets and stage repertoire, that is Spanish classical dance, and it usually rests on a ballet base.

Plenty of our students do sevillanas and flamenco at the same time. They are not in competition; each one teaches you something the other does not.

A note on the dress

The polka dots are not the point

The traje de flamenca — the ruffled dress with the polka dots — is worn at ferias, mostly with sevillanas. Flamenco on stage more often uses the bata de cola, a mantón or plain black. The dress is not what tells you which discipline you are watching. The compás is.