ISRAEL GALVÁN. ‘ARENA’.
SEVILLE'S 13th BIENAL DE FLAMENCO 2004

Deconstruction

Silvia Calado. Seville, October 3rd, 2004
Photos: Daniel Muñoz

‘Arena’ (‘Sand’). Israel Galván: dancing and choreography. Enrique Morente, Diego Carrasco, Diego Amador, Miguel Poveda, Percussion Quartet of the Andalusia Youth Orchestra, Banda Los Sones: special collaboration. Alfredo Lagos: guitar. José Anillo: cante. Isaac Vigueras: percussion. Bobote and Eléctrico: clapping. Mercedes Bernal: Gaita del Gastor (Gastor horn). Artistic director: Pedro G. Romero. Stage director: Belén Candil. Maestranza Theater. Seville, October 3rd, 2004. 9 p.m. Seville's 13th Bienal de Flamenco 2004.

‘Bailador’, the bull that killed Joselito el Gallo in 1920. First choreography. “The afternoon Espartero was killed, Belmonte, who was a boy, remained motionless”. Enrique Morente sings from the bullring-screen. And the banderillero Miguel Poveda takes over the cante in the bullring. Israel Galván remains motionless. He is wearing knee-length shorts, is barefoot and does not move. One arm comes to life, one hand, one heel, his toes... He fights. And his panting is heard. The guitar rings through malagueñas. The cante is broken down into syllables. Anti-flamenco and anti-bullfighting poses, like caricatures of life. Baile's core in the open. Soleá. Caña. Music on the referential side. ‘Caravaggian’ lighting. Silence. Reflection.

Israel Galván

The audiovisual browses around the ring, showing it as violent, barbaric. The message has been given: “The crowd is death”. And the killer must be shown. ‘Granaíno’ returns to cante, like the bull that took away the life of Ignacio Sánchez Mejías in 1934. Of course, Lorca. Weeping. The basic way of projecting the verse upon a green oval breaks the esthetics of the percussionists' shadows against the white backdrop curtain. The center of attention is in the sand. Israel Galván and a metal rocking chair. The bailaor and the training bull. The matador, the bull, the artist, the thought, death. The cry in the metal plate, the shriek as a bad omen, the vital debate. Anguish. Rocking. Balance in the abyss. The bailaor's motion is label-free. Free. Atonal. Uninhibited. At five o'clock in the afternoon.

Once again the killers. Once again cante from the bullring-screen. ‘Pocapena’, third choreography, the bull that killed Manuel Granero in 1922. Deconstruction of the alegría. A bullhorn instrument. It sounds derisive to the audience. The flamenco group on stage. Cante, guitar, clapping. And the bailaor... tonal, specific. Olés. Music and motion converse fluently, understand one another, challenge one another. Cuts, silence and back to dancing with know-how and flavor, full of details and nuances. The crowd bursts into an ovation.

Bullring-screen. Enrique Morente sentences: “He's the best bullfighter because he's killed his shadow”. Neither shadows nor darkness. ‘Burlero’. The red light, and dressed in red, Diego Carrasco. Little jokes through bulerías. His voice half-lost. The bailaor between him and the bullring refuge built with palm trees. Dancing through bulerías. A break in the abstraction. “La pata p’alante y sobre la pata, todo el cuerpo” (Your foot forward, and your whole body on top of it). And Israel Galván stages it so, dancing with all his feeling, wearing his heart out on his sleeve. The crowd has fun. And they laugh and olé. “If I had to take, take the alternative, may Israel Galván give it to me”. Every pass with the cape receives inherent applause. And at the end, an ovation.

Enrique Morente and Israel Galván are also the audience. Another cante. “That bull that is stopped there in the middle of the ring is telling me that I should follow his example”. Metamorphosis. From bailaor to bull. From matador to bull. Diego Amador sits down at the piano. Seguiriyas. Israel Galván drags his foot over the dry white ground. Pedro G. Romero, omnipresent in each second of the show, has opted to give this choreography even more transcendence than it would have in itself, interventionist, delimiting the freedom of interpretation: “Concentration camp. Holocaust. Israel and Palestine. The wall of laments and the wall of shame”. Solitude. Despair. A useless struggle against an unchangeable ending. Agony. Dementia. Attacks against the wall-refuge. Head butts marking the mournful rhythm. Understanding between piano and bailaor. Kindred expressiveness. Density. Intensity. Till nearly fainting.

Sixth choreography: ‘Cantinero’. Next to the last cante by maestro Morente. “When you're bullfighting you're not deceiving the bull, you're undeceiving it”. Music band. Pachanga (rowdy celebration) and requiem. Matador. The bailaor stabs. He puts knives on either side of his shoes. Killer heel-tapping. Another knife in his mouth. Circus. Parody. Ridicule. The sevillana lingers in the finishing touches of each verse, standing on top of a metal table. To transcend the transcendence, the artistic director signals towards “the legend of Picasso's Guernika, which started to be forged in the sketches of a running of small cows”. Leaps. Clapping. Shoeless. The bailaor barefoot for the last cante. Final deconstruction of motion. Final ovation. Perhaps, if like ‘Galvánicas’ or ‘Metamorphosis’ it dies in the premiere, it might be the only ovation received by this new contemporary artistic package contrived because of the alibi of the avant-garde bailaor. A wish. May the world not be deprived of this genius of motion because of creative egoism.

revista@flamenco-world.com