ANDALUSIAN DANCE COMPANY. ‘LOS CAMINOS DE LORCA’
13th BIENAL DE FLAMENCO 2004

Another one by Lorca

Silvia Calado. Seville, September 21st, 2004
Photos: Daniel Muñoz

‘Los caminos de Lorca’ (‘The Roads of Lorca’). Rafaela Carrasco and Manuel Liñán: solo dancing and choreography. Ana Moya: solo dancing. Belén Maya: choreography. Mayte Beltrán, Mariana Collado, Jacob Guerrero, Jesús Herrera, José Antonio Jurado, Rocío Martín, Estefanía la Mimbre, Jesús Ortega, Lidia Pousa, Violeta Ruiz: dance corps. Manuel Gago, Vicente Gelo: cante. José Luis Rodríguez, Fernando de la Rúa, Jesús Torres: guitar. Raúl Domínguez: percussion. José Luis López: cello. Pablo Suárez: piano. Curro Albaycín: guest artist. Pepa Gamboa: stage direction. Maestranza Theater. Seville, September 21st, 2004. 9 p.m. 13th Bienal de Flamenco 2004.

Rafaela Carrasco

Federico García Lorca. Was there ever another poet? One has lost track of the count of how many times flamenco has made use of the man from Fuentevaqueros. And there is always a reason to go back. For the past four years, Granada City Council and the Junta of Andalusia have organized a cultural series in Granada entitled ‘Lorca and Granada’, with a central show evoking the poet. If last year Cristina Hoyos presented ‘Yerma’ in this setting, over this past summer in the Renaissance courtyard of Charles V's Palace in Granada, every night ‘Los caminos de Lorca’ ('The Roads of Lorca') was performed. The show, which now comes to the Bienal, is saved by the creative and interpretative aptitude of Rafaela Carrasco, Belén Maya and Manuel Liñán, as well as by the structure which, nearly ‘in extremis’, stage director Pepa Gamboa had to put together for it.

‘Los caminos de Lorca’ consists of a series of unconnected theater and dance scenes inspired by poems, music and episodes from the world of García Lorca, strung together by the would-be wit of a circus ringmaster played by Curro Albaycín (an artist coming out of the caves of Granada). The stage design combines the wood in the background, shelter of the telluric; and a theater opening with a red velvet curtain, where the characters come and go. The music alternates the live - a piano and a flamenco group - with recorded tunes by Carmen Linares, Enrique Morente, Miles Davis and ‘Café de Chinitas’. All of it can be made out amidst lights which are nearly always faint, hardly allowing the development of the different numbers to be clearly appreciated.

	Rafaela Carrasco

Although there are collective choreographies, performed by a rather new dance corps, what stands out the most in this show is above all the solo numbers. Rafaela Carrasco recovers the malagueña with which she delighted the audience at the last Jerez Festival, this time performing it in a tailored red dress. And with trousers there is no armor. The Sevillian's dancing is taking on huge dimensions. Curve dance. Timeless dance. She was touching, moreover, in ‘Del otro lado’, a number in which she declaims a poem at the same time she dances.

With a comparable personality and style is bailaor Manuel Liñán, who through soleá proves to be pliant, skillful, attacking flamenco dancing from another point of view. And that is always welcome. The two-step both star in based on the poem ‘La soleá’ turns out to be of rare plasticity, emotionality and intelligence. How she moves her dress with a train. And how he jumps over it, how he gets tangled in it, how he lifts it. Sensitivity. Knowledge. Also worth pointing out is the hard work of Ana Moya, performing the solos created by Belén Maya (two of them, in a dress with a train), although of course, no matter how much effort is made, she faces the handicap of the fact that imitation can never equal the original. And standing out as a collective piece is ‘Cantar del alma’ (included on the album ‘Lorca’’), a song by Enrique Morente to which a chorus of Bulgarian voices adds a multicultural dimension. The three soloists head up the choreography of this bright piece at the close of an innocent show, which might suppose food for thought for the authorities of public organizations such as the Andalusian Dance Center and the Andalusian Dance Company regarding how and in what direction to support Andalusian dance creation... with the financing of all citizens.

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