If you head to Seville for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the flamenco festival, be prepared to stay: the celebration will last almost a month. The origins of flamenco are as mysterious as the music and the dance; its invention is attributed to Spanish gypsies, with (perhaps) Moorish, Jewish, Indian, Egyptian, and Roman influences. Some argue the word “flamenco” comes from the gaudy costumes of Flemish courtiers to Spain’s Charles V in the sixteenth century; others insist it derives from the Arabic fellah mangu - the labourer who sings - or felag-mengu, a fugitive peasant.
