SIXTH FESTIVAL DE JEREZ
CARMEN CORTES COMPANY: 'SOLEÁ, UN SON ETERNO'

Variations on a theme: soleá

Silvia Calado Olivo. Jerez, March 6th, 2002

Carmen Cortés: solo dancer. El Güito: guest artist. Ángel Seguro, Gala Vivancos, Alicia Fernández, Silvia Rincón, Silvia Chanivet, Remedios Domingo, José Romero, Pol Vaquero, Kelián Jiménez, David Paniagua, José Miguel Téllez: corps de ballet. Gerardo Núñez: solo guitar, music. Paco Fernández, Vicente Cortés, Juan Serrano: guitar. Pablo Martín: bass guitar. Cepillo: percussion. Marc Miralta: drums. Rafael de Utrera, Antonio Villar, Juan José Amador, Eva Durán, Encarnación Anillo: cante. Teatro Villamarta. Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz), March 6th, 2002. 9:00 p.m.

Carmen Cortés (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

"Before us, there was nothing" and "life clears a path starting at the roots" was some of the oratory launched by Carmen Cortés and company last night when they paid tribute to the soleá, the basic form. At less than half-light and with the musical wrapping directed at all times by Gerardo Núñez, the dance went through variations on the same compás to appear young, old, new, flamenco, avant-garde, slow...

A prologue suggesting germination, the awakening of bulbs...and a flower which blooms. Carmen Cortés alone with the soleá, in bata de cola, in red, with her enchanting arms, her repose, the novel cuts when she moves, in her 'Silencio'. The sound of castanets distances her and runs through the classic turns of the dance por soleá. The repeated continuous rolls search for openings in the backup (guitar, cante, bass, percussion). The bass doesn't shrink back. The dance turns classic in tandem with this woman. As if in a bolero, she takes her time. A masculine voice brings it all into soleá. And when the fog clears, white images of woman on the left. A man on the right. More men on the right. All wandering around the stage, each to his own, like a slow-motion camera, like waking up from a dream. A first forceful bit of flamenco... One by one, the central spotlight brings them to life. The drums provide accents, at times like just another dancer.

'Un sueño que se sueña', ['dream within a dream'] brings Gerardo back to Cortés playing his falsetas. Pas de deux with the dancer Ángel Seguro. Dance. One, more flamenco. Another, more contemporary. Barefoot dialogue. She disappears into her flowing gown. He remains, beating out his moves to the strings of the guitarist from Jerez...a couple of nights before Israel Galván was doing it with his Martian-style flamenco. Tense, unsettling. Cante, palmas, cajón manage to combine.

	Carmen Cortés and El Güito (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

El Güito and Carmen Cortés have come to erase time and space. Smooth, light, strolling, barely marking... Juan José Amador's cante makes them invisible. Soleá in the form of a man returns straight from the gut. Times past. And he grows in his historic solemnity, his sobriety, his presence, the whirling of his vest, offering the most flamenco moment of the show. Carmen too wants to recall, candid, warm, free. But the soleá also must hurry, the screen is divided in two and in one half are the men. Women in the other. And may each side celebrate por bulerías, and cheer and recall...become as one and shout and recall. And in the doing, the show finally catches the pace.