LOS ULEN. ‘ALICIA’. SEVILLE'S 13th BIENAL DE FLAMENCO 2004

Tales

Silvia Calado. Seville, September 19th, 2004
Photos: Daniel Muñoz

‘Alicia’ (‘Alice’). Script and direction: Pepe Quero. Dancing: Rosario Toledo, Manuela Ríos, Manuela Reyes, Daniel Navarro, Pedro Córdoba. Cante: José Valencia, David Palomar. Guitar: Miguel Iglesias, Paco Iglesias. Percussion: Javier Viana. Assistant director: Paco Tous. Choreographies: Fernando Romero, Charo Cruz, Rosario Toledo. Music: Alfredo Lagos, Miguel Iglesias. Lyrics: Juan José Téllez. Special collaboration in the song ‘Alicia’: Kiko Veneno. Lope de Vega Theater. Seville, September 19th, 2004. 9 p.m. Seville's 13th Bienal de Flamenco 2004.

The Bienal's program once again takes a surprising turn. It takes to Lope de Vega Theater - this festival's theater par excellence, according to its very director - the flamenco ballet which the theater company Los Ulen has made based on Lewis Carroll's ‘Alice in Wonderland’. And it's not that it is strange for flamenco to resort to literary versions, with greater or lesser success. ’Romeo and Juliet’, ‘La Celestina’, ‘Rinconete y Cortadillo’ and even ‘Metamorphosis’ have already set precedents. Nor is it that the show is a blunder. What is perhaps bewildering is the setting chosen to present this children's show which, in fact, will have three performances at the Alameda Theater precisely for schoolchildren, the ideal audience for this show.

The work is carefully done. The stage design, lighting, music, wardrobe, lyrics, the performance of the dancers-actors... it is up to scratch in practically all its aspects. Welcome is that sense of humor along the lines of ‘Rinconete y Cortadillo’ (in which Pepe Quero collaborated with Javier Latorre) which is so often missing in flamenco. But the integration of serious flamenco in the show does not hold up... neither for adults, nor for children. Dressed up as Alice, with a pink bow in her hair, Rosario Toledo's dancing through soleá is useless. With a hallucinogenic mushroom for a hat and smoking a giant pipe, like the caterpillar in the book, a cante through malagueñas can only seem ridiculous. The same does not happen with the parodies and gags, as in the case of the highly amusing toná by José Valencia - the "ay" (ouch!), so that you know, arose when one burnt his hand with a candle -; nor with the scenes using more slackened flamenco, like the tanguillos during the Mad Hatter's snack. The schoolchildren who attend the performances of the series ‘Growing Room. Flamenco for Children's Audiences’ at the Alameda Theater over the next few days with ‘Alicia’ and ‘Rinconete y Cortadillo’ (without comparing, since the latter was a great work) are going to enjoy themselves tremendously.

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