ABSTRACT
The notion of flamenco-as-hybrid appears with increasing frequency in the twenty-first century, though it is not without precedent in the twentieth. In contrast to the typifying and objectifying accounts that dominate the literature, Cruces Roldan has contended that flamenco arose as a hybrid style that later became crystallized in conjunction with the appearance of commercial theater. Cruces Roldan's hybrid account steps away from conventional accounts that describe flamenco as a kind of musical phoenix arisen from the ashes of an all-but-lost Andalusian musical tradition. She pointed to Romantic theatrical venues in Spain and to their promise of money-for-art that transformed plural flamencos into singular flamenco around the middle of the nineteenth century. In a sense, her research aimed to counteract the commercial forces that might overshadow flamenco's hybrid roots by highlighting buried remnants of nineteenth-century musical expression. The forces that prompted the appearance of such hybridity included class conflict, emerging nationalism, and twentieth-century tourism.
