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Blanca del Rey, flamenco bailaora. Interview (1)

The tablao. Bare flamenco

Silvia Calado. Madrid, September 2006
Photos: Daniel Muñoz

Blanca del Rey’s name is linked to a place, El Corral de la Morería. The Madrilenian tablao, the granddaddy of them all, has turned fifty years old. A highlight which, as fate would have it, has coincided with the death of its founder, Manuel del Rey, the bailaora’s husband. Both circumstances make a conversation especially emotional about the venue’s history, about its idiosyncrasy, about its role in the last half a century of flamenco life. Blanca del Rey doesn’t beat around the bush when she flatly states that “El Corral de la Morería isn’t a tablao, it’s... the tablao, a temple”.

Blanca del Rey with shawl (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

What is El Corral de la Morería’s trademark?

If you go into El Corral de la Morería you sense something really special. Morería isn’t a tablao; it’s bare flamenco. You climb up the stairs there and if you aren’t talented, the crowd doesn’t fall for you. And that’s hard. Sometimes stages give you everything; the lights accompany you, a whole bunch of things accompany you. It’s like going into a place where everything’s all set up to help you. Morería is bare flamenco and the most impressive silence you’ve ever heard can be found there. When things are true, the crowd turns it into an altar. I love dancing at Morería because it isn’t a tablao, it’s the tablao, it’s a temple. And it has a certain something, that energy from all those great artists who are there. The greatest in cante, baile and guitar have all been there. I remember the début of Antonio Gades, who told my husband before coming out, while the sweat dripped down his forehead, “I’ll either make it big here or hit rock bottom”. It’s a really hard stage, but it’s a stage to find yourself and the essence of flamenco.

And it’s survived the tablaos’ crisis...

There used to be fourteen tablaos in Madrid and there are three or four left. Morería has gone on due to the work of my husband, Manuel del Rey, with day-to-day devotion of countless value. You also have to know how to spot new talents and then that warm way he had about him... He was the last flamenco romantic; that’s why everyone loves him and misses him.

There’s always been the criteria to discover new talents, hasn’t there?

Exactly. Since flamenco doesn’t have any protection of any kind, one of the things we can do is to support new talents. And the thing is that there’s a lot of talent in Spain, but there’s also really great neglect by the institutions. If not a subsidy, tablaos should at least have the cultural consideration to not have to pay so much in taxes. And that’s not the case. You really have to love what you do.

How do you fight against the belief that tablaos are for tourists?

	Blanca del Rey y el mantón (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

That saying got started when the shows used to be taken to nightclubs at summer resorts, at the beach. And then I don’t know why they passed the label on to the tablaos. Where do you see bare, straightforward flamenco? Just because you see a tablao where they don’t worry too much about what they have to hire because it’s not in the hands of people in the know... the rest of the tablaos have their criteria. And that’s unfair. When I travel, if I want to see Hindu dance, I go to places where they have Hindu dance. And whether I’m a tourist or not is irrelevant. If I go to New York I go to jazz places. Do they make it for tourists? You see foreigners and natives there, though there might be more foreigners because the ones who have it right there don’t go so much. How many Spaniards go to the Prado? Morería draws a big local crowd; about forty percent.

What special moments would you highlight from your career at the tablao?

A lot. When Maurice Béjart was there, who then hired me to do ‘Carte Blanche’ in Italy. When Yehudi Menuhin was there, who also hired me to do ‘Del sitar a la guitarra’. When Delors was there, when we were about to join the European Community and he came out of there euphoric. Shortly thereafter, he and Italian minister Lorenzo Natali decided that I would be the one to represent dance in the European Community, something really important to me. When I met Rock Hudson... I was fourteen years old and I was... you can imagine. I’d practically just started dancing at Morería, he approached me, took the flower I was wearing out of my hair, kissed it and put it on the bar. I couldn’t dance. It’s been the career of a long, full life.

How did you get on with alternating between tablaos and theaters?

The contribution tablaos have given to me has been important, since it’s the interiorization, strength, ability to concentrate. And that’s the essence you have to carry with you no matter where you dance. Then, the way you develop a baile has nothing to do with it. It’s much easier at the theater, since you have the possibility to make a different presentation, you have a wonderful lighting design... I’ve always had Freddy Gerlache, a lighting genius. It’s much easier for me to do theater than to dance at Morería. But my enrichment has been to combine both, since the theater can’t give you what the tablao does, and vice versa.

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