flo6x8

Only a short time after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the “activist-artistic-situationist-performative-folkloric-nonviolent” collective flo6x8 emerged in the city of Seville, Spain, temporarily occupying multiples bank branches through dance and flamenco singing, tapping on the floor of those who cause to take away the sleep and the roof of the citizens, singing to the banking system its responsibility for the impoverishment of the population. The branches of fear and violence were transformed, at least for a while, into spaces of political and artistic potential to turn history upside down: “this isn’t crisis, it’s called capitalism.”

The video of one of these actions, called Flashmob Rumba Rave “banquero” and released in December 2010, spread across the internet and was used to call the demonstration against social cuts that took place on 15 March 2011 – one of the many precedents for the 15-M movement.¹ flo6x8 anticipated some of its political innovations: spontaneity in occupying space, radical transformation of the crisis narrative, subversive and inventive joy, contagious openness and porosity.

flo6x8 manages to move in the concatenation between art and revolution, where what matters is not so much what belongs to each field but how its components are choreographed in a localized way. Its actions make use of singing and dance to produce a smooth disobedience. It does not use the mechanisms of flamenco to be experienced in a passive manner, for this is the way to sustain a cry of outrage long enough to transgress the formal codes of political protest and enter a new terrain of uncertainty in which the public begins to doubt, to pay attention, in which the transgression penetrates much deeper into the body, until it hurts.

kike españa
translated from Spanish by ana laura borro

1. 15-M is how the indignados [outraged] movement in Spain came to be known. On May 15 they occupied a large number of Spanish squares, protesting against the welfare cuts caused by the 2007 economic crisis. [e.n. ]

Flo6x8 (2008-2020) was an anti-capitalist flamenco group from Seville, Spain, that carried out a series of dance and song actions in bank offices in opposition to the financial order. The performances were recorded and uploaded to social networks with no other message or text than dancing bodies.

This participation is supported by Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) and Embajada de España en Brasil.