PHOTO ESSAY: Flamenco's heart-wrenching wail captured in images

SEVILLE, Spain (AP) — It was almost midnight and much of Seville was heading to bed. Yet a crowd had gathered in front of a stage on the bank of the Guadalquivir River, beside the bridge connecting the Spanish city's center with a neighborhood famous for its flamenco music .

The night was heavy with late-summer heat, and audience members fanned themselves as the musicians took their places. Then Fabiola Pérez let out a prolonged “Aaayyy!” that traveled across the water.

Her cry, known in Spanish as a “quejío,” is a hallmark of flamenco. It is an intense expression, sometimes guttural and often stretched to the point of breaking, through which a singer reaches beyond the lyrics toward something more intimate: pain, passion, absence, memory.

“The sorrow consumes me. I sing for him, for my father. The quejío is the pain of losing him," Pérez, known as La Fabi, told The Associated Press after her performance. "I go deep inside myself, and there I also find God.”

Flamenco music has medieval roots and is strongly associated with Spain’s large Roma, or “gitano,” population and with southern Spain. Its dramatic singing and dancing, clapping and stomping, flamboyant dresses for female performers and guitar accompaniment have made it a symbol of Spanish culture worldwide.

And for several weeks every two years, the heart of flamenco beats loudest at the Seville Flamenco Biennial. Flamenco fills the city's riverbanks, courtyards, churches, and old factories, bringing together established artists and younger generations. Again and again, singers spoke of channeling lost siblings, a forgotten innocence, hardship, their roots. The fear of surviving. God. Or an emptied mind surrendering to the wail erupting from within.

Nene Escalera described digging into his roots to reach the source of the quejío.

“I see myself as a child and become emotional remembering those who are no longer here,” Escalera said. “That’s where the quejío comes from.”

For Esperanza Fernández, it is an invocation. With her siguiriya – a heartfelt song of deep lament – she calls upon her recently deceased parents.

“Orphaned and vulnerable, I sing for them,” she said.

Others arrive at the quejío on a different path. The artist known as Arcángel spoke not of searching for pain, but of extreme concentration, while Antonio Reyes says he thinks of nothing at all: his mind goes blank, completely absorbed by the song.

Translated into a photograph, the artist appears to forget the stage and the audience. The eyes close. The face tightens. Hands clutch the body or reach into empty space. For a few seconds, a performance becomes something private.

When the singers were shown images of themselves unleashing the quejío, they immediately recognized each instant. They could return to it and speak about where they had traveled emotionally.

In each of those fleeting moments, their faces were bathed in light. And their quejíos could be captured.

This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors.

Mayra Pertossi contributed to this report.