The Museum
The Flamenco Dance Museum
Discover
Discover the world of flamenco in a magical place: the Cristina Hoyos Flamenco Dance Museum. Located in the heart of Seville, a visit is a ‘must’ for any visitor to the city who wants to know and feel the main cultural heritage of Andalusia: flamenco. On its four floors you can discover the unique and singular world of flamenco in all its facets. Written and spoken in 6 languages: Spanish, English, French, German, Chinese and Japanese.
Patio
Main stage, dance hall and museum shop
In the courtyard of the museum the main stage greets the visitors, offering every night the best artists with a flamenco of extreme beauty and emotion. The most original flamenco souvenirs await us in the museum shop.
1st Floor
Interactive museum on the history, styles and costumes of flamenco dance
The interactive floor is the soul of the museum. Through its screens you can understand the origins and evolution of flamenco, discover the influences of other cultures, the richness of its styles and objects from different periods that tell us about the artists and their history over the last two centuries. A giant semi-circular screen will allow you to immerse yourself in an authentic flamenco choreography.
2nd Floor
Temporary exhibitions of paintings, drawings and sculptures.
The first floor is the museum’s art space: temporary and interactive exhibitions show the influence of flamenco on artistic disciplines such as painting, drawings and sculptures by national and international artists from France, USA, Germany, Poland, Israel, Korea and China among others.
Basement
Historical vault of the museum
The basement is the most unique space in the museum, a historical vault with Roman and pre-Roman stones. In this centenary environment our visitors are immersed in the most direct flamenco, the most VIP show in Seville. It is also an exceptional place for other events, exhibitions, dance classes…
INDIVIDUAL BOOKINGS
Book your ticket to the Flamenco Dance Museum. Visiting hours: 10:00 – 19:00 (last entrance at 18:15)
GUIDED TOURS
We offer guided tours for groups and school groups in Spanish, German, English, French, Italian, Korean, Chinese and Japanese.
GET INITIATED IN FLAMENCO!
Do you want to complete your visit with a very original experience? We offer flamenco initiation and percussion classes in which you will feel all the rhythm and beat of the best professionals
Contact us
For group visits, ask for information about availability and prices at: grupos@museoflamenco.com
History of The Building
The Building
Did you know that the Museum of Flamenco Dance is located in one of the highest points of Seville, in one of the three largest historical centers in Europe? It is known that Seville is a flirtatious city with more than enough reasons to be so, as it allows us to travel centuries in history knowing the passage of many civilizations thanks to the traces they have left behind …. And among its many attractions is the only Museum of Flamenco Dance in the world!
The remodelling work on this 18th century palace-house for the future Flamenco Dance Museum began in 2004, although the project started 6 years earlier. The challenge was to adapt an old building in ruins with a lot of historical value, to the uses required by a 21st century museum, with the possibility of experiencing live flamenco, with a tablao and all the paraphernalia of lights, sounds and lighting equipment that a very high quality show brings with it.
On our first visit, the barrel vault was in very poor condition, but by repairing it, Roman and Ibero-Roman ashlars dating from between the 5th century BC and 3rd century AD came to light. These Roman and pre-Roman blocks of cushioned stone take you back in time and it is also the only place in Seville where you can see exceptional flamenco in a barrel vault, you will enjoy the moment, and remembering it, will make you feel happy again?
There was a lot to fix, and an intervention of such magnitude had to have a good captain at the helm. Ignacio Morales was the architect in charge of the project.
Morales understood, to perfection, the spirit that the project required. This was the place where dance enthusiasts would gather to enjoy the dance in a suitable and very special environment. Thus, the stage required the staircase to be moved to the entrance, which, in the end, was the right choice: the location was more practical and accessible for the public, who could access the vault that makes up the basement of the museum, which houses the second tablao and a temporary exhibition room sheltered by contemporary Trajan’s walls.
On the ground floor, in addition to the tablao, Morales completes the project with a rehearsal room where the artists create and retouch their numbers, as well as giving classes to students from all over the world, bewitched by the flamenco duende that knows no borders. And to see flamenco in a more theatrical way, a modern hydraulic stage was installed in the courtyard of Ecija, surrounded by pink marble columns and equipped with two curtains, lights and theatrical sound.
To get into the subject, we have to go up one floor. Five rooms and the cloister. This is where the heart of the museum beats. An audiovisual journey through the history of flamenco dance, to understand this profound and universal art and to immerse oneself in it, thanks to huge state-of-the-art screens, including a large semi-circular screen on which we can see a choreography by the Cristina Hoyos Ballet with music by Manolo Sanlúcar. The latest technology was used for all of this… modern meets history!
And if we go up one more floor, we enter, once again, into the exhibition area. A three-room art gallery and a bright cloister house temporary exhibitions and the museum’s permanent collection.
The respect for proportions, the care in the design of the floors, the treatment of the enormous walls, the delicate stuccoes, are faithful to the original architecture of the Palace-House.
The construction of the building
The work lasted for a year, which took forever… And although the intervention on the building was a success, it left a bitter aftertaste. On the lintel of the door, a beautiful seated virgin from the 15th century, sober in its elegant medieval beauty, blessed the future. And we say blessed because, inexplicably, the image disappeared during the works… Or at least that is what Leocadio, the works manager, told us… He said that he had decided to remove it from its pedestal so that it would not be damaged by the works. For that reason, he said, he put it in a drawer from where, he assured us, it had been stolen.
To this day, we are still waiting for our little virgin to return to her home and rest in peace.
The Ghosts of the Museum
Young, long-haired and dressed in white, he and she also in white, and the one who arrived later in blue. That, at least, is the story of those who claim to have seen them wandering under the historic vault in the basement of the museum.
The first news of their wanderings came from students and teachers of Ibérica Contemporánea de Querétaro in Mexico. Later, from Canada came mother and daughter with the same refrain… The passing of the years has meant that many people have come across them and the lady who shares their ethereal eternity.
Not even the cameras of the internal video circuit were able to witness these encounters. Inexplicably, the recording always failed at that moment… Intrigued, we asked the grandchildren of the former owner…
Their grandparents had never allowed them to go down into the vault alone. Just in case, the vault is blessed.
The Origin of The Museum
How do we start thinking about a museum, a Flamenco Dance Museum, in Seville?
and why not?
Seville, Andalusia and the whole of Spain sell flamenco as heritage, but nowhere was it explained. So we proposed a place that would tell its history, introduce us to its beauty, and make us understand what flamenco is, and we had to do it in an aesthetic, attractive and contemporary language.
That’s how the idea came up in 2001, from the german Kurt Grötsch, who discussed it with Tina Panadero and they both explained it to Cristina Hoyos… “it would be great, I don’t want to set up a school, there are already many and very good ones, and with a museum and in my city, I would give back to flamenco dance all that it has given me, and continues to give me…” those were his words, to which he added “do it well, as you know how to do things, and you can count on everything I have for the project”.
Said and done, Tina had already been dedicated to flamenco for decades, and we started researching, archives and books, we went through the many we already had, we talked to many people: flamencologists, writers, poets, artists… and we visited museums all over the world in search of inspirations for ours, and at the same time we started the search for the ideal site, it would have to be in the centre of Seville, big enough to house everything we had in mind, which included a stage.
And we found the venue! An 18th century palace a short distance from the Cathedral, we could now give shape and place to everything we had in mind!
We entrusted the development of the project to the museographer David Pérez and we spoke to our admired photographer Colita: “we don’t have a venue, we don’t know when, but if we make a museum, we want you to exhibit your collection! So… Thank you “Tieta”!
The house revolved around one of the few remaining Ecijan-style courtyards in Seville, so the visit to the museum had to be circular, where do we start? Its roots, its history, the styles, the masters, the elements, the different schools, the road travelled, epochs, costumes, memories and choreography, ufff, let’s see if we could fit it all in!
And Colita’s collection found its place, in the cloister on the first floor, facing the courtyard and with natural light, like that light they have in their eyes?
On the first second floor would be the exhibitions, a permanent exhibition of Jean Lamouroux, who painted the choreographies of Antonio Gades and Cristina Hoyos, we would hang paintings of Blood Wedding, of Carmen, of Suite Flamenca, of rehearsals…
We also had ideas for the façade, we wanted to make the dancer’s face and the coral earring that was like a piercing, with flowers in the bun and everything, but… no permission to do that on a façade in Seville, then we wanted to make a garden from the first floor, with a tree coming out of that terrace, well, that wasn’t going to happen either! So we weren’t going to be left without a tree, and we decided to hang them in the patio, together with bulrush chairs, which would be like a tribute to the public and the artists, and even, during the walk around the first floor and in the final choreography, we put more chairs to continue with our metaphorical homage.
We didn’t have all the financial funds we needed to set up a living museum, with a stage, with high technology, with quality materials and that would be educational and playful… So we asked for a loan of more than 5 million euros, are you sure? The notary asked us when we signed them, “that nobody gets rich with a museum…” (he added), ahem, since we are here, we will sign… Then we exposed all our savings and mortgaged everything we had and we started to work.
We spent more than four years developing the project until we were sure, almost two years of construction and finally opened its doors in April 2006, and still today.
We are still the first and only museum in the world dedicated to FLAMENCO DANCE.
Mission, Vision and Values
The Museum of Flamenco Dance is unique in the world, it was to make Cristina Hoyos' dream come true, to give back to flamenco dance all that it had given her in her life, and to do it in her city, in Seville, whose city council named her favourite daughter.
Mission
Seville, Andalusia and the whole of Spain sell flamenco as heritage, but nowhere was it explained. So we proposed a place that would tell its history, introduce its beauty, and make people understand what flamenco is, and we had to do it in an aesthetic, attractive and contemporary language and bring it to the world.
That’s how the idea came up in 2001, from a Teuton, Kurt Grötsch, who discussed it with Tina Panadero and they both explained it to Cristina Hoyos… “it would be great, I don’t want to set up a school, there are already many and very good ones, and with a museum and in my city, I would give back to flamenco dance all that it has given me, and continues to give me…” those were his words, to which he added “do it well, as you know how to do things, and you can count on everything I have for the project”.
Vision
Our vision is to be a national and international cultural and artistic reference, and to be part of the Spanish museums that, with quality and care, address all kinds of audiences, giving a new vision of flamenco art and forming part of the Spanish cultural strategy.
Our aim is to spread flamenco dance in a global way, not only with an interactive museum and exhibitions, but also by offering quality shows in our two stages, the patio and the vault, with the typical “Hoyos” stamp.
In this way, after obtaining information about flamenco dance, its origins, the most significant styles, the path it has taken to become what it is today, elements, choreography, exhibitions… visitors can see everything they have learnt in a dynamic way, attending one of our shows, which we are sure will not leave them indifferent.
Values
The Museum’s values are both universal and traditional. The main value of the museum is respect for the cultural richness and differences, both of our visitors and of the local culture, especially flamenco.
In the Ecijan courtyard of the museum, next to one of the columns, in the foundations, an urn was buried. In it lie the sacred texts of Christianity, Judaism and Islam: the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, the Talmud… Letters that bear witness to vital moments in the life of the Hoyos family, the names of all the people who worked on the project and the works. An olive branch completes our treasure. A message of peace and unity that supports its foundations.
The main work of the Museum represents flamenco dance, Seville and Spain. It provides a service, which is always carried out under the prism of the strictest quality, betting to carry out activities with a high level of demand. It offers a satisfactory experience to our visitors, thanks to the daily work of a great team, managed under efficiency criteria, looking for the best relation between invested resources and obtained results. We consider it our duty to turn culture into a means to improve our society.
The social value of the Museum is its contribution to the flamenco economy, to the artists’ livelihood, to the sectorial collaboration and cooperation with associations and other public and private entities linked to the manifestation of flamenco art.
As a company, we strive for continuous improvement, both in the dynamics of digitalised management and in the innovation and updating of the museum and its shows. Our commitment to constant improvement is also reflected in our policy of human quality and excellence in internal and external work processes, as we define ourselves as a cultural services company. Our programme of excellence includes both our customer service staff and constant support for the artistic sensitivity and creativity of our artists.
However, the museum’s raison d’être is the musealisation and living cultural intermediation of flamenco as a World Heritage Site.
