BIENAL DE FLAMENCO DE SEVILLA 2008
JAVIER BARÓN, 'DOS VOCES PARA UN BAILE'

Perfect simplicity

Silvia Calado. Seville, October 3rd, 2008

'Dos voces para un baile'. Javier Barón : baile, choreography, artistic director. José Valencia, Miguel Ortega: cante. Javier Patino, Ricardo Rivera: guitars. El Choro, Juan Diego: baile, clapping. David Montero: stage director. Faustino Núñez: musical director. 15th Bienal de Flamenco de Sevilla. Teatro Lope de Vega. Seville, October 3rd, 2008. 8:30 p.m.

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Javier Barón (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

And Javier Barón remembered that not only Mario Maya was missing at this Bienal, but also Pilar López, Marienma, Alberto Lorca and Luisillo. With his hand outstretched towards the heavens, he offered all of them the standing ovation to the beat which the audience responded with to the presentation at the Teatro Lope de Vega - two years after premiering at the Flamenco Thursdays - of his show 'Dos voces para un baile'. Something which happened exactly twenty years after the bailaor born in Álcala de Guadaira was awarded the 'Giraldillo del Baile' on the same stage. And with his performance, he not only did honor to that prize but also to all the maestros he safeguards in his baile.

'Dos voces para un baile' is one of those scarce shows in which quadrature is achieved through the most extreme simplicity. Guitar, cante and clapping are enough company for the baile to be displayed in all of its formal, musical and emotional fullness. And the thing is that it all begins with taking a look back. His voice in off recalls his early days in Madrid, where his uncle took him for him to achieve with baile what he couldn't achieve with bullfighting. And his heels resound in the silence. The guitar comes out to the encounter, and he takes the hunch with baile without steps.

You don't know how, but the music now sounds like farruca, a style whose base he learned first hand from Los Pelaos and which he turns into a stylized, personal dance. The clapping goes to tangos, and the music turns more baroque to lead up to the taranto. Everything flows. Nothing ceases. And Barón dances on and on. Valencia goes to Levante. Ortega to Huelva. The two cantaores do their utmost between olés and applause from the crowd. A circle is formed to the right, and the compás weighs down Lebrija. The bailaor lets loose muscles and bones, as if it were easy to dance por bulerías. The two bailaores-clappers assist him in specific refrains. This whole sketched out opposite. Rivera's guitar and Ortega's cante wake up the night watchman.

The voice in off now alludes to the pleasure of listening to toque and cante. And alone, Patino plays the beautiful score 'Meridiana' smacking of zapateado. From there to the sung trilla ... and the lyrics of the harvester, pow!, turn into cantiñas, just like the layout of the musicians on stage, which is never the same, but changes stealthily. The bailaor bursts out, dancing intensely with flavor, know-how and a pinch of old-time craftiness.

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Javier Barón (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

And tomorrow… Arcángel (Photo Daniel Muñoz)     · Arcángel, 'De dónde venimos, a dónde vamos' Teatro Lope de Vega, 8:30 p.m. "A journey around Andalusia in search of the origin of flamenco". That's the common thread of 'De dónde venimos, a dónde vamos', the show which Arcángel premieres at Bienal 2008. The Huelva-born cantaor assures that "there'll be things that sound familiar to people, since they're based on recreations of folk cantes". But he also affirms that "it opens a possible gateway towards where flamenco can grow, but in my way of understanding; I don't want to convince others". Some of the repertoire in this concert, in which the guitars of Miguel Ángel Cortés and Daniel Méndez participate, will be a part of the album which, as the artist announces, he'll begin recording in November". Cañizares (Photo Daniel Muñoz)       · Cañizares, 'Origen' Teatro Central, 11 p.m. Following the complex work of transcribing and recording Albéniz's 'Suite Iberia', Cañizares takes a look at his "musical past". The flamenco guitarist has "re-adapted music composed from my childhood until today, but seeking to bring out the guitar sound much more". To do so, he has Juan Carlos Gómez on second guitar, Rafa Villalba on percussion and Ángel Muñoz on baile performing choreographies of his own and by Fernando Romero. The concert will be a reflection of his current search: "I'm interested in that simplicity so hard to find, that which you can express with very few notes, but it's really hard to find them". And that, without losing an ounce of flamenco flavor. "At the very moment when you lose the toque nature of what I'm doing, I've stopped being flamenco", he determines. So he upholds that "flamenco has to evolve beginning from tradition". And he concludes that "those who know don't need to camouflage themselves by saying what they do is flamenco".