SEVILLE'S BIENAL DE FLAMENCO 2002. 'TIERRA ADENTRO'

The group, the setting, Cristina Hoyos...

Silvia Calado Olivo. Seville, September 28th, 2002
Photos: Javier Hurtado

'Tierra Adentro'. Staging and direction: José Luis Castro. Choreography: Cristina Hoyos. Female dancers: Cristina Hoyos, Carmen Lozano, Pepa Mercé, Mar Montero, Mónica Hidalgo, Cristina Gallego, Encarna Fernández. Male dancers: El Junco, Francisco Martín, José Vidal, Jesús Martín, Jesús Ortega, Javier Romero, Juan Antonio Jiménez. Singers: David Palomar, David Sánchez, Mercedes Cortés. Guitarists: José Luis Rodríguez, Antonio Sousa, Roque Acevedo. And the small girl: Carmen Bellod. Music: José Luis Rodríguez. Teatro de la Maestranza. Seville, September 28th, 2002. 9:00 p.m.

The sensation of being before a work for the silver screen, lingers on a second viewing of 'Tierra Adentro'. The way time frames are manipulated, the changes of stage and scenery, the mood lighting, the story line…all enhanced by José Luis Castro, director of the palace of Seville opera, a man with extensive experience in the theater. The seond time around however, analysis of detail is inevitable.

Cristina Hoyos. The dancer has long maintained that she would retire from performing "little by little, in compás". That she continues to head the cast of her company may be criticized to a greater or lesser extent, but not the way in which she handles her appearance: the part of an older woman adapted to her current abilities, allowing her to indulge in Hoyos-style armwork and personal expressiveness.

The choreography...and the group's flamenco dancing. Cristina Hoyos knows how to move, and knows to tell a story through movement. The constant segmenting of scenes with different sub-scenes of dance, the variety of numerical combinations (duo, trio, circular formations), the solos with castanets. And with these objectives in mind, knowing which sounds belong where, whether they be flamenco (and not merely of the Levante), or not flamenco (cornet and violin for example).

Staging and other such resources. Proof that to apply flamenco dance to a theatrical work requires a specialized team. If not, how could one manipulate time (past to present and back again), jump from one scene on one stage, to another scene on another (with online constructions), create a mood through lighting, give depth to the plot, which by the way, was taken from a novel by Juan Cobos Wilkins.

The universal. The overall effect, the internationalist nature of the work, understandable, as demonstrated for example by the gesture of a Canadian woman, crossing borders. And Cristina Hoyos advises of this beforehand in the lines she uses to present this project which she calls a turning-point in her career: 'Tierra Adentro' "could take place anywhere in the world, wherever there is a mine and men laboring within: the joy of celebration and the pain of tragedy as lived by the very same people who are confronted, in the most natural way, with a paradoxical existence."

revista@flamenco-world.com