Juan de Juan, flamenco bailaor. Interview
“I seek myself in my solitude”
Silvia Calado. Seville, September 2008
Translation: Joseph Kopec
Juan
de Juan went away, as Manuel Torre’s seguiriya
says, “by himself to the countryside”. But
not to weep; rather to find himself. He was there for
some time “without further company than that of
a donkey which would come and see me every once in a while”.
There, without music, he sought his sound and “the
depth of my being”. He says he has found both one
and the other. And now he captures it in a project with
which he sets out on a new road solo. But not alone. ‘Orígenes’
- premiered at Bienal de Flamenco de Sevilla 2008 - situates
Juan de Juan in the center of a conversation between great
jazz, Cuban sound and flamenco musicians, a journey to
the “black sounds” interconnecting the roots
of these types of music.
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Juan de Juan (Photo
Daniel Muñoz) |
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What do you put forward in your
new project ‘Orígenes’?
It’s a show in which we’ve
united jazz, Cuban and flamenco to converse together and
provide a new focus when expressing, especially, flamenco
feeling. The three kinds of music have a lot in common;
they all have black roots. Jazz is pure black, Cuban is
black mixed with indigenous and with ours, and ours has
clear black roots. In the 16th century, ten percent of
the population in Seville was black. That’s why
the Fraternity of the Blacks exists; the archbishop made
it to save the blacks who became free so that they wouldn’t
turn to delinquency. And the origin of flamenco might
have been forged in that era. There was a guy in Triana
called El Negro and he got married to a gypsy woman from
Triana; they say he used to sing and dance like you wouldn’t
believe. And that deep rhythm of deep flamenco, that grief
of flamenco, has a lot to do with the black. It has its
sense, its meaning and its concept from this restlessness,
this union.
The unusual thing is that it’s
a bailaor who brings about that encounter of musicians...
Never. That sound has never been done
dancing; it’s always been through sound, through
music, through instruments. Expressing it with baile has
never been done before. And it’s a really special
sound. For example, I do a fast seguiriya, which is the
way it used to be done in the 19th century. The thing
is that on developing it, it turned slower, more reposed...
which is all right, which is respectable. And they come
into this dizzying seguiriya and open it to some other
worlds... Afterwards it comes back again; it’s a
coming and going, something lovely. I’m in love
with those sounds and those music maestros, like Jerry
González, like Alain Pérez, like Antonio
Serrano... The percussion is by Piraña and Ramón
Porrina, on guitar there’s my colleague from Morón,
Daniel
Méndez, who’s phenomenal; he adapts perfectly,
he has incredible swing. And then the female vocals are
by La
Tana, Genara and Lola Molina, and the male ones, by
Rafael
de Utrera. I worked on the lyrics for them; I’ve
written most of them. I grab my guitar, sit down at home
and do my own lyrics. There are some that are many years
old and they’re from experiences I’ve felt,
nuances which sound out there.
Juan de Juan (Photo
Daniel Muñoz) |
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And how did you bring this entire
band together?
Well, by calling them up on the phone.
I have a relationship with them of having seen each other
several times, of listening to them. We’ve met each
other more than once like that at parties and I might
have done a few steps for one of them and he’s stuck
some notes in for me. I’m already getting a new
project ready, which is entitled ‘Del rey de Harlem
a los negritos sin drama. El poeta y los sones negros’.
And I’ll leave it at that; you’ll know more
soon. It’s a show which the same team is going to
do, because its musical concept goes along the same lines
as ‘Orígenes’.
Did they compose music for you?
First I sent them music which I had;
for example, I gave them lyrics for the seguiriya, the
tones which it was going to be done in more or less, steps
of mine... And when they came, they contributed what they
have. Then we got together, joined one thing to the other
and it all transformed. A different world has been created.
New music has been made.
And new baile?
Totally. Above all, I’ve been searching
a lot in the black sounds of the steps, in the depth of
the steps. It’s not about heel tapping for the sake
of heel tapping; it’s a search for sounds that hurt.
A different Juan de Juan...
I think so. One’s personality is
always the same, but I think that mine has a lot to do
with this. My way of understanding music, of getting into
the times and playing with them has a lot to do with those
kinds of music, with those kinds of souls.
Juan de Juan (Photo Daniel
Muñoz)
Has calmness ushered in with
the years?
Yes. Now, when I want it to. When I want
to stop, I stop. And when I want to do it like that, I
do so. I do everything because I want to, because my soul
feels it and because it’s the right time. This show
isn’t so much about seeking a pause as searching
for feeling and expression, about souls which at a given
moment fly through sounds and fly through notes. It’s
communication of feelings.
You must feel a little like a
musician here...
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| "A
bailaor always has to be a musician, even if he’s
dancing por soleá with a guitarist and a
cantaor" |
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Of course. I really feel like a musician.
A bailaor always has to be a musician, even if he’s
dancing por soleá with a guitarist and a cantaor.
How are you working to forge
your own way?
From my solitude, from my intimacy. I
close myself in my studio all alone, without anyone else.
I study without music at the studio, I look at myself
in the mirror, I seek my sound and the depth of my being.
And then when we all get together, things change. But
I seek myself in my solitude.
Is it a burden or an advantage
to have been a student of Antonio
Canales?
A person has stages in life. And there’s
a stage which goes by, another one comes... Right now
I’m in another stage which doesn’t have anything
to do with that. I was very young at the top; a lot of
people had opinions about me and didn’t know anything
about me. They see you as a copy of such-and-such an artist
just because of the preconceived idea that person has
when they see you. And baile and music are much deeper
than those opinions. When you listen to Jerry González
or Miles Davis, the sound is a trumpet playing, but there
are instants when the person, sound and instrument seem
to be one.
Juan de Juan (Photo Daniel
Muñoz)
