Spiel und Theorie des Duende

Federico Garcia Lorca dealt with flamenco in numerous poems and, together with composer Manuel de Falla, organized the famous flamenco competition in Granada in 1922. Although the festival could not be established, it fostered a renewed interest in flamenco. Central to the Cante Jondo favored by Lorca - the serious, solemnly melancholic singing - is the duende as the magical climax of flamenco. Lorca explains this phenomenon as an almost demonic side of art, something that can captivate and play with the soul. In a lecture he gave on October 20, 1933, before the Asociación Amigos del Arte in Buenos Aires, he presented his influential aesthetic manifesto 'Theory and Play of the Duende,' which is now available for the first time in a complete German translation. This is a project in cooperation with the UNESCO Cities of Literature Granada and Heidelberg.