Flamenco (Intro, just from Wikipedia)

Flamenco is a genre of music, song and dance from the Spanish region of Andalusia, noted for its energetic, staccato style. It grew fromAndalusian music, song and dance styles and the song and dance of the local Romani people.

Its origins are in Andalucía in the XVIII cnetury. It is controversial the precisa starting, but it seems clear that it aroused as a fortunate mixture of four cultural traditions: Gipsy, Muslim, Cristian and Jew.

The cante (singing), toque (guitar playing), dance and palmas (handclaps) are the principal facets of flamenco.
In recent years flamenco has become popular all over the world and is taught in many countries; in Japan flamenco is so popular there are more academies there than in Spain. On November 16, 2010, UNESCO declared Flamenco one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
-------------------
Flamenco music styles are called palos (liteally would be "sticks"). Songs are classified into palos based on criteria such as basic rhythmic pattern, mode, chord progression, form of the stanza, and geographic origin. There are over 50 different palos flamenco, although some are rarely performed. For a complete explanation, see the main Wikipedia entry on Palo (flamenco).

-------------------
Source: wikipedia (in English) with small aditions from the Spanish version.

Guitar, clapping and voice (and dancing)

Paco de Lucía

Only the sound of the guter. The best, Paco de Lucía

Camarón and Paco de Lucía

The basics: guitar and voice, each siting in a chair. By the greatest: Camarón and Paco de Lucía.
Camarón, dead in 1992, is probably the biggest mith in flamenco.

Cante jondo

Not only Camarón, in this case Salvadora Galán sings in this simplest form: called "cante jondo" ("deep singuing" could be translated) where there is only one guitar and one singuer, both sited.

In the following, the great Camaron, with Tomatito playing, in two of the clasic palos: tangos and fandangos:

Sevillanas Gitanas

Gipsy Sevillanas. Sevillanas are a kind of flamenco songs especially suited for dancing, very well structured in 4 parts separated by a clear silence. In this video a quit elegant Sevillana is sang by Camarón. In other videos we will see more popular sevillanas and the typical way of dancing them in pairs.

Popular Sevillanas

Although the video quality is not very good, it presents what can be seen in many villages in Andalucía, Castilla (south) and Extremadura, exhibitions and contests of Sevillanas. Here the 4 parts are not separated by silences, but by a continuous clapping, but can be well identified.

La Copla

In the 1940´s  apeared a stile of popular song stile, that has a root in flamenco (and other in Opera) called Copla. It was really mainstream untill the arrival of pop and rock music in the sixties.

I specially like the fusion of copla with jazz that has performed in recient years an artist called "Martirio:

La Rumba

With the migration of many andalucian people to Catalonia en the 1950´s the stile of music called "Rumba" florised. Like Copla, it has a root in Flamenco; not in the cante jondo, but in the more festive variations.

Later, the Rumba also mixes with popish stiles, at least with the instruments, leading to groups that became really famouse like the Gipsy Kings. In the same line were "Los Manolos", don´t miss this rumba reinterpretation of the Beatless:

Fusion