Extracts from the Havana Lectures
So then, the Duende is a power and not a method, a struggle and not a thought. I have heard an old guitar teacher say that "the duende is not in the singer's throat, the duende rises inside from the very soles of one's feet." That is to say, it is not a question of ability or aptitude but a matter of possessing an authentic living style; that is to say of blood, of culture most ancient, of creation in act.
This “mysterious power which everyone feels and no philosopher can explain” is in short, the spirit of the earth.
The true struggle is with the duende.
The arrival of the duende always presupposes a radical transformation on every plane. It produces a feeling of totally unedited freshness. It bears the quality of a newly created rose, of a miracle that produces an almost religious enthusiasm.
All art is capable of duende. But the place that it naturally occurs is in music, dance, or spoken poetry because they require a living body for interpretation and because they are forms that perpetually live and die, their contours are raised upon an exact presence.
FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA
translated by Stella Rodriquez
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