VI FESTIVAL DE JEREZ FUENTEOVEJUNA.
BALLET NACIONAL DE ESPAÑA

I! I! I!

Silvia Calado Olivo. Jerez, 27th February 2002

Credits - Antonio Gades: director, choreography, and lighting. Elvira Andrés: Artistic director. Dancers: Mayte Bajo, Kira Gimeno, Óscar Jiménez, Francisco J. Velasco, Ballet Nacional de España. Cantaores (Flamenco singers): Isabel Soto, Manuel Palacín. Musicians: Enrique Bermúdez, Jonathan Bermúdez, Ángel Montejano and Pedro Ontiveros. Theatre: Teatro Villamarta. Jerez de la Frontera (Cadiz province). 27th February 2002. 9pm.

Photo: Daniel Muñoz

"Who killed the knight commander?" Tyranny... although the townspeople of Fuenteovejuna supplied the implements. And it is this one "I!" cried with one voice, which provides the sole accompaniment to dance, the language used to narrate Lope de Vega's play. It is this one cry, together with dance, which Antonio Gades's baton transmutes into that very village of Cordoba which the knight commander Fernán Gómez Guzmán subjected to a reign of terror, in times of the Catholic Monarchs. And it was with this one cry, encircled with dance, guided by the magic of Antonio Gades's baton, and using Ballet Nacional de España as a medium, that the curtain was raised at Teatro Villamarta on the opening night of the VI Festival de Jerez.

And what a unanimous I. And what dance... a language that Gades, from Alicante, has absolute dominion over. The language he's been using, since the first performance at Genoa's Opera House in December 1994, to give shape to the catharsis of a village subjected to despotism. Folk dances, traditional village dances, dances from the heart of the ochre soil, which marked the end of a day's threshing. Dances where Flamenco starts to show its face: a tango to add some sparkle to the party, a seguiriya to express suffering, a dispute, a duel...

Photo: Daniel Muñoz

A circular structure, in which a throng of tridents act in unison to take a life, defines the play. And the director, helped with the adaptation by J. M. Caballero Bonald, is withholding his final royal verdict. This is a return to group singing, to primitive, earthy traditional dance. The townsfolk can be pardoned from the moment they appear, in regional dress, huddled in small groups, as if ready to recite the Angelus. From the first moment the knight commander curbs the townsfolk's joyful gatherings, lashing out with a fearful voice. A fearful voice which introduces contrasts of light and shadow, pas de deux and classical ballroom dancing. His anger is the drum; his whip, the dark shadows; his oppression, silence... As soon as his gaze is lifted life starts to recommence, the dance starts to recommence, along with the merry hubbub or 'jaleo' that accompanies the party. That richness with which Gades fills the stage, reminiscent of a Goya painting, returns to the Lope de Vega play which Gades narrates without speaking...

But the unified motion of the members of Elvira Andrés's ballet speaks for itself. The traces of 'jotas', of 'seguidillas', the sprinklings of 'boleros' speak for themselves... The Flamenco cante of the singers Isabel Soto, Manuel Palacín and the famous cantaores Gómez de Jerez and Enrique Pantoja speaks for itself. The music of Enrique Bermúdez, Jonathan Bermúdez, of Ángel Montejano, of Pedro Ontiveros speaks for itself, even the weary pre-recorded baroque and folk melodies. And the fine cloth veils which adorn the dancers.

And the Flamenco speaks for itself... the duels are paced out with the sole accompaniment of 'cajón' and 'palmas': Flamenco box-drum and handclapping. And if the seguiriyas are used to build up to this point, the bulerías are all the more so. And this is brought about using acaravaggiada scenes, with sparse musical accompaniment, with silences, with calls to earth, with lights fading into darkness. And the Flamenco speaks for itself, colouring the festivities with tangos, or with bulerías. And Fuenteovejuna speaks for itself, with a single voice, "I! I! I!" And the audience, until that moment silent, gave a raucous applause reminiscent of a bulería.