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SEVILLE'S
BIENAL DE FLAMENCO 2002. 'GALVÁNICAS'
Suddenly revived...
Silvia Calado Olivo. Seville, September
27th, 2002
Photos: Javier Hurtado
'Galvánicas'. Israel Galván:
Dance and choreography. Guest artists: Carmen Cortés,
Manuel Soler, Pastora Galván. Special collaboration:
Gerardo Núñez, Arcángel, Segundo Falcón,
Julio Jara. Musicians: Marc Miralta, Manolo Nieto, Rafael
Marinelli. Corps de ballet: Israel Galván Company.
Imagery: Federico Guzmán, Ivan Schreck, Pedro G. Romero.
Artistic director: Pedro G. Romero. Scenography: Belén
Candil. Project director: Máquina P.H. Teatro Central.
Seville, September 27th, 2002. 9:00 p.m.
To galvanize: to suddenly revive any human activity or emotion
(Diccionario de la Real Academia Española)
The tepid applause in a festival more given to gushing admiration was disorienting:
that was the unsettling reaction to 'Galvánicas'. And it is a statement.
To explain what Israel Galván is trying to accomplish in this premiere
work is as difficult as trying to assimilate it. A quick look at the program tells
us: "A project which attempts to make his way of dancing a recognizable language
that is his own, as well as sprung from that great machine which is flamenco".
And yes. Israel Galván has consolidated a personal and unprecedented approach
to flamenco dance, since that, and none other is his expressive framework. And
'Galvánicas' shows it as a kaleidoscope, like a handful of independent
choreographic works unified by that special language of his.
Pastora Galván
'Farruca del día once' ['Eleventh day farruca']. Aside from the circumstances
of the wrapping (11-S), the offering is moving: autopsy of a dance. The stage's
entrails on view, Israel Galvan's in a state of decomposition and recomposition
to the beat of Gerardo Núñez's music: guitar, drums, and along the
way, bass, keyboard and finally, voice. The disjointed movements of the body are
notes, and vice versa. An unsettling repeated motif. It grows. Stops. Silence.
The guitar purposely out of tune. The dissonance screams out. Remembrance of rest.
"To dance from one's seat, without falling off the chair, dodging death".
He wants to disgust. He disgusts. The hands go aloft…the tension of rock
music. The Doors, 'This is the end', Spanish-style, apocalypse, war, Coppola.
Fear. Manolote doesn't get the revolutionary adjective.
'Guajira del extravío'. Putrid-smelling plants and flowers. Deadly beauty.
And that's how dance is, "taking off from Pepe Marchena's cubist guajira".
Soler on the cajón, Arcángel singing. Gerardo Núñez,
galvanized, does a takeoff on himself. That voice which spirals without additives.
That dancer of feet, finger-snaps, turns, so flamenco, bulerías, jaleos,
arcs. "En un manicomio oí a un loco que decía" ['In a
madhouse I heard a madman speaking']. Yearnings for freedom.
Intermezzo (one and two). Meneses machine. Delightful cante
given to compas. Segundo Falcón, with Soler's recorded
palmas. From tanguillo to tango, from tango to tientos. "A
work by Antonio Machado to put together a mechanized popular
collection, an idea transmitted by the young poet Meneses".
From bulería to jaleo, from jaleo to soleá.
"The same machine sung by Antonio Machado, this time
in Juan de Mairena's version".
Tonás del Ángelus. The inspiration: a Daliesque interpretation
of Millet's painting. The duo of singers lock threshes in 'Gran vidrio'. Vision.
The duo of dancers. Machine, field, am antis. Carmen Cortés taking
on the Galvanic idiom, Israel Galván in an industrial loop. An aggressive
twosome, vigorous, carved in stone, pornographic.
Romance de la guardia civil española
'Romance de la guardia civil española ['Ballad of
the Spanish civil guard']. The appendix, the appendicitis.
An isolatable choreography from a modern dance program. Israel
Galván choreographs for twelve dancers working with
the music of Luigi Nono with whom he already toyed in 'La
Matamorfosis'. Staging straight from Matrix, overly
contaminated with the tics of current dance. Violence, repression,
scream.
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The other side of the story
The night was galvanizing. In the silences you could hear the buzz of Chayane's
nearby megaconcert, the god of Latin music, a nocturnal drag race passing through
the zone, the chaos of traffic, a glossy fair with a stage for Lole Montoya and
for Diego Carrasco, a woman, very womanly always in her car, always wet, the city
has the feeling of being flooded with water…Galvanic.
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