SEVILLE’S 2006 BIENAL DE FLAMENCO. EVA YERBABUENA

With and without soleá

Silvia Calado. Seville, October 6th, 2006

‘El huso de la memoria’. Eva Yerbabuena: baile, choreography, art and stage director. Paco Jarana: composition, musical director. Dance corps: Mercedes de Córdoba, Sonia Poveda, Asunción Pérez, María Moreno, Mariano Bernal, Eduardo Guerrero, Juan Manuel Zurano, Alejandro Rodríguez. Cantaores: Enrique Soto, Pepe de Pura, Rafael de Utrera, Jeromo Segura. Guitars: Paco Jarana, Manuel de la Luz. Percussions: Efraín Toro, Manuel José Muñoz. Sax-flute: Ignacio Vidaechea. Guest artist: Patrick de Bana. Special collaboration: Aida Badía, Eduardo Lozano. Stage design: Óscar Mariné. Lighting design: Raúl Perotti. Seville’s 14th Bienal de Flamenco 2006. Teatro Lope de Vega. Seville, October 6th and 7th, 2006. 9 p.m.

Eva Yerbabuena (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

“A show doesn’t depend on a baile por soleá”. The sentence was uttered by Eva Yerbabuena a few months ago right in the middle of the creation of ‘El huso de la memoria’. In the end, taking a look back and at the request of Paco Jarana, she had no choice but to recover it. And that’s how her company’s new show ends; with that piece which is the synthesis of the Granada-born artist’s way of performing, understanding and enhancing flamenco dancing. But this time the soleá wasn’t enough in itself to outshine the show. And perhaps because the dimension of this piece is already known and perhaps also its limits, there was more interest in pondering the other ‘Evas’; the ones stemming from each challenge, from each creative death rattle.

One of them is the Eva Yerbabuena dressed classic-style, with a bata de cola and shawl, with back combs and a flower at the very top of her head, ready to finally dance for Pastora Imperio and her die-hard fan, Matilde Coral. Of course, she performed the mirabrás her way, with the interest shown not so much in the plasticity provided by such flashy complements, but in being able to take the piece for a while beneath the music. That lets her carry the baile off the ground in the plastic constructions of posture, train swirling and shawl spirals, as well as in the delicate footwork. And this baile will be still more believed.

Another Eva Yerbabuena is that of the magical lullaby she shares with dancer Patrick de Bana. She does believe that one with her feet together, already seized and ready to cause tears. Dressed in white lace, she spends most of the scene rooted to the floor. The dance lies in that not having legs. 90% feeling. 10% arms and curve. And the guitar translating her to sound, very beautiful, hardly sounding. Next she’ll drop into the arms of the prodigious guest, to flow and make flow. The third Eva Yerbabuena is that of the epilogue, the third saeta. A sigh of extremely subtle, contained baile, covering the diagonal light towards Enrique Soto, with huge cante.

There’s a fourth Eva Yerbabuena, the one who’s there without being there, the one who thinks and designs for the dance corps and for the show’s evolution. And in length, the one most present... so much so that she ends up being missed on stage, especially between the mirabrás and the lullaby, separated by three quarters of an hour. She kicks off in the prelude, a piece dressed in oranges and reds, with playing with the lighting and imperative exclamations, with a touch of a sense of humor, with a scoop of the hypnotic guitar and flute music. Eva the choreographer’s way of modeling images made of bodies in motion, stillness and asymmetries continues in the farruca by the bailaores, an original revision of the mold, and in the rondeña by the bailaoras, cooked up between solos – an outstanding one for Mercedes de Córdoba – and joint choruses. And she spreads out fully in the percussion number ‘A galera’, commanded by Eduardo Lozano. The piece, dressed in blues, is conceived as a mantra of minimum, reiterative body and sound movements. The appoggiatura of the timely, expressive percussions by Efraín Toro and El Pájaro plus the melody sketched by the guitars round off the number. A real delight. The transitions have to be added to that: two saetas sung at the front of the stage by Pepe de Pura before the nearly spiritual dance of Aida Badía. The comprehensive group work, exquisite in dynamics, lively in esthetics and elegant in concept, has to be doubly highlighted, since there are few flamenco dancing companies with room for the dance corps amidst so many individual ‘companies’. And there’s no baile without music, made purposely with the intelligence and taste of Paco Jarana, or without cante, with four contrasted voices which don’t let up. Eva Yerbabuena keeps on growing... with and without soleá.

Hotel Triana. Remedios Amaya & Capullo de Jerez, 11:30 p.m.   Remedios Amaya (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)     A night of cante in Triana. One of its daughters, Remedios Amaya, opened the night with her resounding way of expressing herself in flamenco. The cantaora was clever enough to show her festive side, that which she makes genuine art from and the most favorable one for this popular, late-night stage. Jaleos extremeños, tangos, bulerías. A repertoire of her own, classical, and Camarón’s, her male alter ego. Her echo of authentic flamencura is glorious, her throat blessed. The cante uttered with and without a mike, according to her free evolution. And then the guitar of Juan Diego, alert to unforeseeable action, the crowd involved. Cante... and baile. A fiery whirlwind which shook up the neighborhood. Barefoot, her arms to the heavens, her hips swinging. Portrait of an empress. And a gift for Antonio and Josefa, the parents of the cantaora, who brought out her sisters to provide the final fire for the inspired fiesta. At last, Remedios Amaya. Flamenco needs her in a big way.   Capullo de Jerez (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)     Though as far as exclamations go, note the ones sparked by Capullo de Jerez. He came out amidst “get outs”, “olés” and even some “innocent” or another. The power of television is endless. But it’s true that before the incidents that have put him in this week’s headlines (an accusation later refuted of the attempted homicide of a baby following an argument culminating a night of partying), the Jerez-born cantaor had already aroused passions... and just for artistic reasons. He has a halo of authenticity and imperfection in his way of uttering cante which relates him to something primitive, which he combines with a natural gift to communicate and get across. And having a lot to do with it is his straightforwardness, devotion and peculiar message consisting of direct lyrics, as well as his festive styles, except for the soleá and fandangos. He was brimming over in this performance which, in case there was even a shadow of a doubt, he dedicated “to all the children in the world”. Ahem. There was a special something in the air tonight, with small groups of young people holding their own grand finale in the streets. On a corner of Calle Alfarería, in a circle of motorbikes, a woman’s sweet voice could be heard por tangos... Remedios-style. Around Chapina, others were ushering in the morning hours to the compás of bulerías. And what mustn’t have happened at the taverns. Something special, something special. Online store - CD: Remedios Amaya. Me voy contigo - CD: Capullo de Jerez. Poderío Further information - Interview with Capullo de Jerez, cantaor (September 2006)

And tomorrow... Andrés Marín (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)       Andrés Marín, ‘El alba del último día’. Teatro Central, 9 p.m. The Sevillian bailaor has chosen another encounter at Seville’s Bienal to premiere his new show, ‘El alba del último día’. According to the artist’s own words, it’s “a fiction about the last night of the singing cafés”. Andrés Marín traces an imaginary tour of the mythical singing cafés of Kursaal in Seville, Chinitas in Málaga and Suizo in Granada, with flamenco styles alluding to each place, among others, martinete, granaína and Málaga’s taranta del Cojo. In the musical section, he has the work of guitarist Salvador Gutiérrez, as well as the voices of Segundo Falcón and José Valencia. He also has the collaboration of contemporary dancer Salud López in the choreography, dramatic art and script, “since in time you go in other directions, you touch on other elements that you feel like and you’re helped to develop so that you don’t get bogged down in the same old thing”. The show stresses not only the tradition of cante, but also the “alternative” nature the singing cafés used to have, “joints where there used to be great variety: from a pianist to a star, with silent movies in between”. Son de la Frontera, ‘Cal’. Hotel Triana, 11:30 p.m. The group from Morón presents the contents of their second album, ‘Cal’, at the setting of the Hotel Triana. The band, consisting of Raúl Rodríguez, Paco de Amparo, Moi de Morón, Pepe Torres and Manuel Flores, continues its tribute to Diego del Gastor and to the flamenco of Morón de la Frontera. They compared this music “to the phenomenon of the local craftsmanship with lime, which has whitewashed homes and streets, being a mute witness to the history of flamenco. We collect the hard stone from the quarry and with heat, it melts into liquid which decorates life”. The new album by Son de la Frontera will be released in late October with eleven songs, four of which revolve “around the maestro’s legacy” and the rest “are created by us, self-searching through teamwork which isn’t usual in flamenco”. Son de la Frontera (Photo: Daniel Muñoz) Online store - CD: Son de la Frontera. Son de la Frontera Further information - Interview with Son de la Frontera, flamenco group

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