GALLARDO: 'A MI MANERA' (JOSÉ GRANERO, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR)

5 ways 5

Silvia Calado Olivo. Jerez, March 9th, 2002

José Granero: artistic director. María Pagés (dance) con Ana María Ramón (cante), José Carrillo and Rubén Levaniegos (guitars), Emilio Herrera and José Barrios (palmas). Lola Greco (dance) with Natalia Marín and El Almendro (cante), Carlos Berlanga (guitar), Jesús Rivas (percussion). Beatriz Martín (dance) with David Lagos, Antonio Malena and Londro (cante), Eugenio Iglesias (guitar). Maribel Gallardo (dance). Teatro Villamarta. Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz), March 9th, 2002. 9:00 p.m.

Five female flamenco and classical dancers, and one maestro. Five personalities with one guide. Five different ways plus one more to tie it all together. María Pagés, Lola Greco, Beatriz Martín, Sara Calero and Maribel Gallardo in José Granero's hands, the maestro. As a result of the encounter, a work designed to showcase individualities, working in presentation format, continuity, choreography and a dynamic to delight the senses that are located between flamenco, personality and classical Spanish.

The opening, a number titled 'A mi manera' ['my way'], summed up the essence of the show. Granero turned to his native Argentina for the musical backdrop and found himself with Piazzola and the tango, with love and deception. And in this nocturnal format he made the most of his one single appearance on stage to demonstrate, with his own choreography, Pagés' flamenco arms elegance, Greco's light as a featherness, Martín's female presence expressiveness, Gallardo's classical castanet playing.

And then the metamorphosis. María Pagés as swan. With the music of Camille Saint-Saëns (the canned music taking away credibility throughout) and choreography by Víctor Ullate, the dancer from Seville unfolded her infinite arms, searching for the stance of the beautiful bird. Her 'swan song' became entwined with a seguiriya (with live back-up), flamenco every bit of her, all of her elegance, all of her grandeur. Air and earth in motion...the stars aligned. Your arm, your arm is a rudder in the final turning. More flamenco, impossible though it may seem, preceded by your sculptured figure in shadow and light, once again in the soleá debut which brought down the final curtain of the Villamarta.

Maribel Gallardo and Sara Calero. The former, with castanets and period dress on loan - just like the choreography and music - from the Ballet Nacional de España came on dancing 'La Chacona'. After recreating Spanish dance of the seventeeth century which went from folk music to court music, Gallardo returned with seguiriyas that was upbeat and almost festive. The latter woman, with castanets and tulle, interpreting 'La noche', Granero's choreography to 'Sinfonía española' by Eduard Laló. The lot of a debuting dancer, of lightness and of classical Spanish.

Beatriz Martín chose the soleá to show off her flamenco wares. Bearing, strength, femininity. Bursts of activity versus silence. Without filling. She departed from the classic format of dancer and backup in a second appearance modeled by Fernando Franco: 'Leve, leve'. The dancer from Granada suffered alone through a Chavela Vargas bolero, did her heelwork in silence with tremendously forceful crescendos, twisted beneath a shaft of light...and went off barefoot leaving an introspective number in which she had displayed versatility.

Lola Greco shared the night's ovations with Pagés. All she needed was her 'Rondeña a lo Greco'. She fused oriental elements with flamenco, with a classical approach as well as her own. The knowledge of how to do it, feeling made into movement, dreams hanging from gauze, Hindu-style, showing trousers beneath. Turn, turn, turn, pirouette, adagio, plenty of technique, divine arms.

Five ways five...plus one more to tie it all together.