ABSTRACT
Flamenco in our day may seem like a stable style but only because it rests on three institutional legs that provide it with a solid footing. The institutions and their accompanying philosophies served as anchors for the actions and beliefs of artists and audiences during the crucial period of flamenco-formation, between 1880 and 1980. The institutions themselves were education, art, and journalism; and their accompanying philosophies were krausism, modernism, and documentarism. This chapter documents the ways in which the three institutions incorporated these philosophies and insistently imposed constraints that promoted a uniform self-understanding among flamenco artists, along with their backward leaning sense of style and identity. The flamenco style, understood as a musical aspiration formed in the bowels of modern institutions, is a politically-charged art that supports the autonomy project of Andalusians in the twenty-first century.
