I’m back in Spain and somewhat sad to be so. My visit to Japan was marvelous, and it ended too soon. I didn’t have much time to see flamenco because, as was to be expected, I was busy soaking up the native culture. However, I was able to visit the El Flamenco tablao in Tokyo, where I met and interviewed the young flamenco dancer Jesús Herrera. I also had the pleasure of visiting an advanced dance class at Flamenco Studio Mayor and interview its founder, dancer and teacher Masumi Suzuki, known as “Mami.”

I will share all of these experiences with you in the upcoming days. Today I want to talk about the traditional Japanese art form kabuki. I was lucky enough to see two kabuki shows in the historic, working class Tokyo neighborhood of Asakusa. Kabuki is a combination of theatre, music and dance. It is a performing art that relies heavily on gorgeous make-up, hair styles, costumes and sets that are elegant and rich in color and texture. Even if the spectator doesn’t speak Japanese, the movement and the facial expressions are so dramatic that it is relatively easy to understand what is happening.

The 11th of December, I had the pleasure of seeing Juan Manuel Mora, a young cantaor from Barcelona, at the Madrid tablao Las Tablas. Far from having that gravelly voice that has come to be expected of purist flamenco singers, Mora has a distinctly young and delicate voice, prettier than it is gut-wrentching, which is more or less appreciable depending on the audience’s mood and expectations.

I’d seen Mora before in the 2008 Flamenco Pa’ Tos galas, where he’d impressed me slightly more than at Las Tablas, probably because of the better sound system, lighting and space, which, like it or not, has a big influence on the audience’s experience, especially with an art form as intimate as flamenco and a show that consists of only two performers: singer and guitarist.