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FROM SOLEARES TO SOLEÁ
Luisa Triana analyzes a half century of evolution in flamenco dance.
Candela Olivo
From the time she debuted as a child in New York under the auspices of La Argentinita,
up until she decided to trade the footlights for paintbrushes a half century later,
Luisa Triana has accumulated sufficient criteria to evaluate the evolution of
the recent history of flamenco, from the special flamenco perspective that has
come from living abroad. The loss of freedom, musical changes, the enrichment
of styles, and the present dominance of the buleria are the key points in her
analysis.
On excess
Nowadays they are abusing bulerias too much, as a last resort to make sure
the number is going to be successful. And I think that today's artists are very
good, they are better than ever, and they should have a little more confidence
in the form itself and not try to change it.
On fusion
Flamenco has been evolving and improving all by itself. You need only to take
a look at a book by Otero, my father's maestro, and you can see that the positions
are completely antiquated, and that kind of flamenco wasn't danced ten years later,
nor twenty, nor thirty. What we're doing now with flamenco, sticking in things
from other cultures, doesn't improve flamenco. Flamenco doesn't need to borrow
anything from other art forms, musically it's got everything and especially the
dance. That doesn't mean we have to limit ourselves to dance academy routines,
because you also have to realize that there are those who have relied solely on
tradition, and add nothing more.
Luisa Triana teaching in a seminair in California
(50's)
On evolution
You have to move on. I saw that equilibrium go from my father's era, then Carmen's,
up to the seventies. That evolution was natural, it went at a slow pace, it was
evolving from inside flamenco itself. Musically, they started to enrich it with
a few chords that were a bit different, but they stayed within the compás.
Nowadays they're changing the compás to such an extreme that it tricks
you. So I ask myself: What has that artist achieved by tricking me with the compás?
All of a sudden I don't know where he was, even though afterwards he ends up in
compás. I can't participate with him. Before, they would do some footwork,
but you could follow it, you were with the artist. When it reached a certain point
you could let loose an 'ole' and it was almost like you had danced with the artist.
And in the old days, I'm talking about from the fifties to the seventies, the
audience was reacting constantly.
Now you go to a show and the audience is completely quiet, because they don't
stand a chance. At the end they applaud, because most of the dancers have danced
very well in the technical sense, but speed isn't the only aspect of technique.
Carmen Amaya used to really break loose
at the end of her dances. It's too bad that her alegrías, the actual alegrías
that she created, was not recorded on video. It is recorded on audiotape (click
here to listen) and there you can follow the sense and the feeling of the
footwork. At the end she would start letting loose, and then you knew she was
going to finish. Now they let loose very soon.
On men and women
A women should always show her femininity, and if she has good feet, fine.
But not all the dances are appropriate for this. This is something else I find
missing lately. The dances used to feel differently from each other. Not every
dance can be the most important of the night. And now they try to finish off the
show every time they come out. It can't be.
Soleá used to include footwork, but very little. It was a woman's dance,
men didn't touch it. In my father's day, men danced farruca, alegrías and
bulerías. In a fiesta, tanguito and that's it. Women danced soleá,
tangos... Tientos came later on, as a result of searching for something new actually,
because it was very limited, there were few dances. Then they started dancing
alegrías, but then it was danced by women. They've even lost what choreographically
used to be called the 'ida' (Carmen Amaya was still doing it) and it was to link
the dance in order to go into the bulerías ending. The ida had a predetermined
musical part, which was two compases played by the guitar, and the woman did the
feet. Afterwards they went eliminating things and they're doing bulerías
from the time they come out, they give you a verse and already they're into bulerías.
That's also because they're looking for easy applause... and it's not that bulerías
is easy, but they know it's going to go over.
Luisa Tiana with La Argentinita, her dance's godmother,
and with her father during the performance of 'Café de Chinitas' in Buenos Aires
(50's)
On the forms
What I was saying before, the special personality of each dance... Soleá
was elegant. Even when men started dancing it, they almost did it asking permission,
showing off their grace and style. Of course, men have always had to do footwork.
In the caña, what had to be done with the feet was better-defined. In soleá
itself, which in those days we called soleares... I don't know why it used to
be plural, someone will have to explain that to me... that's also evolved. Just
as we didn't used to use the word 'palo', that's a new thing, I don't know when
it began, but I suppose some time in the last twenty years. And I think it's fine
because it's easy to understand. The soleá had a certain aesthetic, and
tientos also. Alegrías was the strongest dance. The pattern that has developed
for alegrías is the one which has had the greatest impact within a predetermined
choreography. But women for example, in the beginning, used to use their arms
more. When it came time for the heelwork section they did a couple of things and
that was it. If you had better feet you did more, but it wasn't a question of
spending twenty minutes doing feet nor of going into bulerías straight
through until the end. What I mean to say... those dances had their particular
personality...
On zapateado
In America zapateado was danced a lot, because people liked it. I started dancing
zapateado because I didn't want to put feet into my soleá, my soleá
which was soleares. I also did a garrotín and I put in some footwork to
embellish it, but there was no escobilla section. The dance had a lot of choreography,
it was very mounted to fit the cante. So, in order to show off a bit, because
I had good feet and I didn't want to copy Carmen, I started dancing zapateado.
Many artists who came from Spain saw that that was needed in order to continue
lending variety to the show. And you couldn't really present an all-flamenco show
in those days, because the cante wasn't well-received by audiences and you had
to limit it, never up front as a solo, but always in the back and limited.
On fashions
One thing that I'm glad has disappeared and which was much overused during
the sixties and seventies, is the rumba. It used to be like today with bulerías.
It was a farce as far as I'm concerned, because you'd be dancing a soleá
or a seguiriya and suddenly, 'let's go!", you pulled out a scarf and... As
far as the audience, it was a guarantee that the show was going to be well-liked.
Even in a taranto, with a verse about they cut off both your brother's hands and,
all of a sudden, ole, no more sadness. That was a commercial facet that they added
and which has disappeared.
I'm sure that many of the experiments they're doing will leave worthwhile things
behind, because rumba is really cute and it's still danced, but now it doesn't
fit in. And nobody would dream of using it, the way we're using bulerías.
I can only hope that the time will come when they leave bulerías in its
place, where it belongs. If you stick it in from the very beginning, then what's
left for when you have to expand and improvise?
On improvisation
Dances nowadays are too contrived, you can see the choreography. The guitar,
the palmas, the cajón... everything is rehearsed, and nobody dares to do
anything outside of the plan, because if one goes out, everything goes to pieces.
I remember that in the dances my father and I did, no matter how many years we
would do a number, especially the solos, we would set the entrances and the key
points. But you let the guitarist play whatever falsetas he wanted, and you let
the singer come in, if not in the first compás, then in the second, it
didn't make any difference. In that way the guitarist had complete freedom. Only
once in a while would I ask him to play a falseta I liked. Flamenco wasn't so
programmed. I believe that freedom has to return because the guitarists are very
good, the singers are very good, the dancers are very good, the people who play
the palmas too, but they're all tied up in knots so they don't make any mistake.
No matter how much they pretend otherwise, you can tell it's all programmed. The
problem is also that the dances are too long and it's difficult not to repeat
oneself.
I always had to improvise because I had a very bad memory and would forget
things. Sometimes my father or my partner would get angry, but since I was resourceful...
More often than not what I improvised would be better, although it might not be
as strong or complicated, because you're giving your all in that moment, and of
course, that's flamenco! Nowadays you only see those moments of grass-roots flamenco
as I call it, in the peñas. In the theater it shouldn't be so controlled.
You have to control the lighting, the technical end. The communication between
artists should be a little freer...
Translation: Estela Zatania
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