ABSTRACT
The flamenco style achieved stability over the course of the twentieth century under the influence of specific institutional constraints. The constraints responsible for this stability were subtle yet powerful. Krausism, modernism, and documentarism established a backward-gazing flamenco aesthetic, and paired it with an Andalusian self-consciousness gradually and implicitly through repeated experiences rather than through conscious choice. Spanish national soul-searching continued into the 1930s when Francisco Franco rose to power, moved to the forefront of Spanish politics, and focused so much of his administrative machinery and political energy on the issue of national identity-formation. Just so, tourists arrive in Andalucia looking for dance without attending to the deep historical associations between dance and song, and usually without paying much attention to the confusions voiced about dance by Andalusian scholars. In 1981, the Law of Harmonization of the Autonomous Process reduced the privileges of the 'historic communities' and increased the potential for all communities to achieve similar levels of autonomy.
