EVA YERBABUENA. ‘A CUATRO VOCES’
SEVILLE'S 13th BIENAL DE FLAMENCO 2004

Dancing-verse

Silvia Calado. Seville, September 18th, 2004
Photos: Daniel Muñoz

‘A cuatro voces’. Eva Yerbabuena: dancing, choreography, stage direction. Paco Jarana: guitar and music. Dance corps: Mercedes de Córdoba, María Moreno, Sonia Poveda, La Choni, Estefanía Cuevas, Luis Miguel González, Juan Manuel Zurano, Eduardo Guerrero, Amador Rojas, Alejandro Rodríguez, Eduardo Lozano. Cantaores: Pepe de Pura, Segundo Falcón, Enrique Soto. Special collaboration: Miguel Poveda. Percussion: Antonio Coronel, Efraín Toro. Sax and flute: Ignacio Vidaechea. Lyrics: Horatius García. Maestranza Theater. Seville, September 18th, 2004. 9 p.m. Seville's 13th Bienal de Flamenco.

Eva la Yerbabuena (Foto: Daniel Muñoz)

Eva Yerbabuena has a universe inside which goes well beyond dancing. She wants to share it and show it in the form of theater dance, sacrificing even the trance in which her dancing has plunged her (us) so many times. ‘A cuatro voces’ is inspired in four poets, in their biographies and in their poems, but it also works as abstraction in which poetry is dancing and dancing is verse. And not only the dancing, but also rhyming - freely, at that - is the choreographic movement, the lighting, the scenography, the music... All of the artist's intellectual effort - not just physical - has been tapped in the creation of a show which works as such... and not halfway, but from beginning to end. That is perhaps why that superhuman dancing never arrives which, like the soleá from ‘La voz del silencio’, eclipsed everything else. And it is not that Eva Yerbabuena does not dance or does not dance well; it would be an obvious remark to announce her quality as a performer. It is that the energy and the emotion are shared out fairly.

As in ‘5mujeres5’, the show starts off with doors opening, involving the audience (who packed the theater) from the very beginning. The voice in off announcing the countdown does so poetically. There are oranges on the stage and a scene developing with two characters. A vegetable garden. A game. Prologue. They are stanzas, instead of scenes or acts. The first one is ‘Llanto de madres’ (‘Mothers' Weeping’). Muffled crying which does not sound, which hardly moves. Eva Yerbabuena, in a white nightgown, moves around in slow motion. The mischief lies in putting herself into the shoes of an adult. A piano sounds. ‘Clair de lune’ by Debussy. Dancing "undanced". The group. The collective picture. Simple motives in feet and shapes, multiplied with feeling, with musicality. Stillness, a lot of stillness. Serrana. The old cante by Pepe de Pura. Different views of action. Eva Yerbabuena, dressed as a widow from García Lorca, remains alone with the cante, by the way, included in the action as an element of equal importance as the dance. The sung word has been situated on the same plane, as part of that riddle - without an interlocutor - which the artist asks: what poet is it about? It is Paco Jarana's turn, there in the second plane in the background to the right. Cante. She dances through seguiriya, with all the appropriate density. Just percussion in her feet and in the hands of Efraín Toro. Toná. The cantaor and bailaora fall to their knees. Another flash of genius... one more.

Second stanza. ‘Velintonia, 3’. The left half of the background reveals an encounter... between poets. Together through fandangos are Miguel Poveda, Segundo Falcón, Enrique Soto and Pepe de Pura. “Social injustice” is sung to, but not with the poetic virtue flamenco has always used to express it, but rather pronouncing both words. Anti-flamenco. Anti-music. The boldness of measuring themselves up against the four poets and the popular poet with no name does not work. Another verse: soleá through bulerías, ‘Desde niños’ (‘Since Childhood’). A four-man choreography. Interest in the sounds and sketches of movement. The bailaora, dressed in red satin, alternates with them. Feeling ‘interruptus’. The music flows sweetly with evocative touches. By the way, the dance corps (renewed nearly completely a few months ago) is now compact and perfectly instructed for the occasion, unlike at the Mont de Marsan Festival. The first applause of the night is for them.

	Eva la Yerbabuena (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

Dry leaves come falling down. A girl plays on the edge of a bed of flowers. The bailaora is there, but does not show herself. Paco Jarana performs the music which colleague Juan Carlos Romero created for the poem ‘Asesinato’ (‘Murder’) by Lorca, in the version by Enrique Morente which Miguel Poveda gets ready to perform. In the back, the girl dresses up as a white queen. In the front, the cantaor-poet sings face-to-face with the bailaora-feeling. They move around like confronted pendulums. She covers his mouth. Ah, brilliant. The street sweepers pile up leaves at the poet's feet. A row of white pieces. A row of black pieces. They dance chess. Tientos tangos. The poem of birth creaks in the mouth of cante. The group's choreography is imaginative, personal... also moving forward in this task is Eva Yerbabuena, who appears disheveled, dressed in a shirt and trousers, using ugly esthetics. The bulería is the verse ‘Ahora más que nunca’ (‘Now More Than Ever’). Art baile. The frozen little kick. Motionless finishes. The devil in their feet. The bent anti-gravity foreshortening. And now yes, the poetry. “I was a stone and I lost my center”. Death. The poet remains alone. “How strange for my name to be Federico”. The intensity and depth of the piece are startling. Olés. Children's voices, reading poetry the way children do. “They've brought me a conch”. “I'm coming back for my wings; let me come back”. The street sweepers finish their job, as if erasing the words. Blank paper. A two-voice lullaby. Absences. Marble. Light guitar.

It could be the end, but there still remains the fourth stanza, the epilogue stanza ‘Fieramente ángel’ (‘Fiercely Angel’). The four cantaores, the four poets, are seated lined up on the right side. The central column with thirty shirts acting as a backdrop now manages to be seen. Alegrías. Eva Yerbabuena appears sheathed in a starched old-gold colored dress, with white lace frills. The smell of camphor. She grasps the tradition of dancing, strolling along the edge of orthodoxy. Personal. A lady. Savoring. The ovation feels like a roar after having been held back for so long. Everyone is still, looking forward. Eva Yerbabuena has her eyes closed. The poets withdraw, each one singing definitive lyrics. She remains alone. She takes a step forward. “This is my place and I won't change it for anything. I fell. I don't repent”. Last Judgment.

“As long as there are any words in the world, there will be poetry”. As long as there are any movements in the world, there will be dancing.

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