SEVILLE'S 2006 BIENAL DE FLAMENCO. ISABEL BAYÓN, ‘LA PUERTA ABIERTA’

Perfect balance

Silvia Calado. Seville, September 19th, 2006
Translation: Joseph Kopec

‘La puerta abierta’. Isabel Bayón: baile, choreography. Miguel Poveda: guest artist (cante). Jesús Torres: music, guitar. Paco Arriaga: music. Sergio Martínez: percussion. Carlos Grilo, El Lúa: clapping. Pepa Gamboa: stage director. Lighting: Juan Manuel Guerra. Stage design: Antonio Marín. Seville's 14th Bienal de Flamenco 2006. Teatro Central. Seville, September 19th, 2006. 9 p.m.

Isabel Bayón holds the key. In the open door of ‘La puerta abierta’, the Sevillian bailaora has found a balanced formula to display solo flamenco dancing. And the basic component is simplicity, a simplicity which imbues everything. It's in her baile, purified to the extreme in terms of woman, personality and tradition. It's in the accompaniment, the most succinct group made up of cante, guitar, percussion and clapping: just six artists on stage. It's in the structure and the presentation, in which there's no more presence than that of access to another space open to performance and in which there's no other common thread than the precise rhythm between pieces. And all of it is offered with such intimacy, such elegance, such nakedness, that the crowd is trapped from the first minute to the last.

Miguel Poveda and Isabel Bayón (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

A few months have gone by since the presentation of the sketch and she was right to announce that she felt this gala at the Bienal was like the true premiere. Without taking anything away from Juan José Amador– a real cante maestro for dancing -, he who has come to substitute him gives the show a different dimension. There's no doubt that Miguel Poveda is a special artist, a cantaor coming from high up to embellish whatever he touches. Together, he and Isabel Bayón form a picture-perfect couple, brimming over with sweetness and love for the beautiful. You can sense the cantaor's total involvement in the project. He multiplies the bailaora on stage. The sensuality makes her more sensual when she tackles the milonga. The flirtation makes her more flirtatious in the pasodoble they end up dancing in each other's arms... deliciously (see online video). The flavor becomes even tastier in the alegrías, the main number and the most explosive one in the show. Oh, how that open-back bata de cola moves around, clinging to its bearer, before that vintage cante, which suddenly turns sweet, and then becomes know-it-all and age-old. How generous he is, having as he does in a few days the presentation of his new album, ‘Tierra de calma’, at the Teatro Lope de Vega.

	Isabel Bayón (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

The guitar-music by Pepe Torres also stars in another top-notch duet with the bailaora. It comes out in the piece with the shawl which flies, which spins, which envelops. And at the most intimate moments, the transitions used to change the wardrobe in a middle distance within the audience's view, the guitar remains alone. And the bailaora changes clothes to the sound it marks for her, translating the instrument's slight sounds into motion. At times you can even hear her sing softly in that space of hers. Even getting dressed is baile in her. And the thing is that the guitar carries the musical weight of the entire show – which has Paco Arriaga as the author of the charming pasodoble -, only decorated by the timely percussion of Antonio Coronel, as ambience-filled as rhythmic, and the made-in-Jerez clapping. The live music is joined quite successfully by several packaged pieces. On the one hand, the ‘Goldberg Variations’ by Bach, music made to rock with which Isabel Bayón sketches out with her arms. And on the other hand, the old-time cante by Agujetas and Anica la Piriñaca, who appear as inner ghosts to stress, por martinetes, the bitter side of existence. To be highlighted, the way in which the samples are used, whether it is interrupting the climax of the alegrías, or as a piece all its own as the final, danced by the Isabel Bayón who knows how to be strong and sober.

And also worthy of mention is the threading together of the whole designed by Pepa Gamboa, the extreme care taken in all the details involved, from the transitions to the entrances and exits by the musicians – because the bailaora is always on stage -, as well as the lighting, the simple stage design... and to the end, that instant in which, receiving an ovation from a really enthused audience, the six leave while singing “leave the door open, leave the door ajar, just in case I ever get tempted to come knocking”. May there be many shows with this kind of quality in what remains of the festival.

Off-Bienal. Gilles Larrain Exhibit / Book by Juan Vergillos Photo: Daniel Muñoz       The program of related activities of Seville's Bienal de Flamenco is offering a broad view of the artistic production generated around flamenco. In the morning at the Expo Casino, the book ‘Las rutas del flamenco en Andalucía’ by Jaén-born writer and critic Juan Vergillos was presented. According to researcher Curro Aix, this work published by the Fundación Lara is “an informative book, but which comes close to being a treatise, due to its details and rigor”. Throughout eleven chapters, he reels off, territory by territory, the history of flamenco from its origins to nowadays, stopping at the stars and styles. And he points out that it includes “the update of research done on flamenco over the past twenty years”. Vergillos added a comment on the work perspective, “which takes the fandango as the origin and generator of all Andalusian musical wealth”. Then in the afternoon, in what was Morocco's Pavilion Expo’92, and today the headquarters of the Fundación Tres Culturas, the exhibit ‘Flamenco. Paisaje del alma’ of photographs by U.S. artist Gilles Larrain was inaugurated. The main body of the exhibit consists of real-size prints on canvas of snapshots he took during a journey around flamenco which, with Paco Lira and with his "headquarters" at La Carbonería, he took in 1983. Added to them are photographs taken more recently at his studio in New York. Chocolate, Mario Maya, Pedro Bacán, Tía Juana la del Pipa... star in some of the photos with the most impact in the exhibit, which you can also visit online at Flamenco-world.com.

And tomorrow... Manuel Liñán (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)       Carmen Grilo / Manuel Liñán. Teatro Alameda, 9 p.m. The theater earmarked for young flamenco talents continues its bill of double programs with Jerez-born cantaora Carmen Grilo and Granada-born bailaor Manuel Liñán. The cantaora will offer a performance accompanied on toque by José Quevedo ‘Bolita’ and on clapping by Carlos Grilo and El Lúa. The bailaor, on the other hand, will display part of his latest show, ‘1980’, recently premiered in the series ‘la otra mirada del flamenco’ (‘Flamenco's Other Regard’) at Madrid's Teatro Pradillo. He also recovers the piece ‘Madame soledad’ with which he won first prize at the Spanish Dance and Flamenco Choreography Contest. As he explained, it's about “dancing a monologue, since I think words also have intensity, rhythm, cadence, and are therefore danceable to me”. Moreover, he evokes the traditional form of baile por alegrías and “I vindicate the short suit in a special heel-tapping, since it goes on just the sound of clapping, which I've created a percussion score with”. Further information - Flamenco x 2. Carmen Grilo and José Valencia, cantaores. Interview - La Otra Mirada del Flamenco 2006. ‘1980’, Manuel Liñán. Review and photos

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