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BIENAL DE FLAMENCO DE SEVILLA
2008. CAÑIZARES, ‘ORIGEN’
The essential
Silvia Calado. Seville, October 4th, 2008
‘Origen’. Cañizares:
guitar, music, artistic director. Juan Carlos Gómez:
second guitar. Rafa Villalba: percussion. Ángel
Muñoz: guest artist on baile, choreography. Fernando
Romero: choreography. 15th Bienal de Flamenco de Sevilla.
Teatro Central. Seville, October 4th, 2008. 11 p.m.
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Cañizares
(Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
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After forty-some concerts in a row, coming
across one like the one Cañizares
offered at the Teatro Central is a real treat. The guitarist
hadn’t appeared for quite a few editions at this
festival, more exactly, since he presented his work ‘Flamenco
Picassiano’ at the Teatro Maestranza. And, after
bringing his ‘Suite Iberia’ to Seville’s
Flamenco Thursdays a little less than a year ago, he returned
to the Bienal returning to himself.
If an expert in music wanted to technically
analyze what he did in that hour and fifteen minutes,
he’d have material for a doctoral thesis. Nobody
applies such sophistication to flamenco. But the incredible
thing is that although his music could be so for those
in the know, it’s absolutely legible at the same
time. He has compositions of the kind that musically define
the present of the genre, as ‘Entre dos aguas’
and ‘Tauromagia’ did in their time. And although
they’re returns to places already visited, this
musician’s own music is never the same in his hands.
He said it all just in the introduction.
He looked upwards, stayed silent for a few seconds and
began playing with chilling solemnity. He went straight
in search of the essential notes, making the sound inspire
and expire. He no sooner sparkles on the neck of the guitar
than he holds his breath. Phew. But he immediately relies
on the subtle percussion of Rafa Villalba (who curiously
and exactly uses a second box drum as a bass drum) to
relax the ambience por colombiana. That central motif
is bewitching, and returns to him after each bit of mischief.
He plays the bulería vibrantly, making the music
work from his head as well as from his hands. Nobody strikes
the notes like that. And nobody knows so accurately where
to strike like that.
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Cañizares
and Ángel Muñoz (Photo Daniel Muñoz)
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Of the few elements made use of in this
show, he gives a special role to baile. Ángel
Muñoz completed the quartet with a prodigious
zapateado. And not by brimming over with speed or virtuosity,
but rather by measuring them out the same way that the
guitarist does so. Since, really, that dancing is music.
Perfect form, impeccable technique, brilliant delicacy.
Then with Juan Carlos Gómez on second guitar, the
trio plays tangos and tanguillos… Cañizares’s
way. And it turns out truly amazing. Because of the levelheadedness,
the fluency, the trapezes, the measuring-out, the enjoyment.
And from the gunshot of ‘Toca madera’, to
the sensitivity of the ballad ‘Lejana’. The
Córdoba-born artist’s baile returns in the
alegrías. Baile and music synchronized in climate
and form, as if they were the same thing, like a dance
alter ego of the guitar. The impossible routes of the
music continue in the fandango ‘Palomas’,
carried to an extreme in the rumba… a journey to
a world where sensations grow and burn. The theater unanimously
leapt to its feet like a spring in order to applaud to
the beat Cañizares, the essential, the work, the
quality, the criteria, the music, the flamenco which travels
and, in short, an extraordinary concert.
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Juan Carlos
Gómez, Cañizares, Rafa Villalba and
Ángel Muñoz (Photo Daniel Muñoz)
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ARCÁNGEL,
'DE DÓNDE VENIMOS, A DÓNDE VAMOS'
Teatro Lope de Vega, 8:30 p.m.
New
means
S. C. Seville, October
4th, 2008
‘De dónde
venimos, a dónde vamos’. Arcángel:
cante. Miguel Ángel Cortés,
Daniel Méndez: guitars. Bobote, Eléctrico,
Torombo, Los Mellis: clapping. Agustín
Diassera: percussion. 15th Bienal de Flamenco
de Sevilla. Teatro Lope de Vega. Seville,
October 4th, 2008. 8:30 p.m.
Arcángel
(Photo Daniel Muñoz)
Arcángel
always seemed to be so sure of the starting
point, that now the interesting thing is for
him to reveal where he’s going to. He
already displayed in ‘Zambra 5.1’
where things are leading to. And he reaffirms
it in this new concert, well, which is new,
so to speak. But that which points to the
future doesn’t appear until the final
stretch and is called ‘Quitasueños
II’. In this piece, Arcángel
puts on headphones, plays a guitar and steps
on a pedalboard. So equipped and accompanied
by percussionist Agustín Diassera,
he records himself and shoots out samples
until he composes a song as he goes along
consisting of superimposed layers of loops
of vocals, chords and taps. It isn’t
that he’s inventing anything revolutionary,
but he is setting foot in his own time. There
used to be stretched-out skins and now there
are simply machines. Because the cante is
still the same. As occurs when he performs
the trilla over the recorded score. Long ago
it was Falla’s classical nationalism,
and today, Mauricio Sotelo’s contemporaneity.
But the cante is still the same. And his quality
as a cantaor is, too. And it is thus reaffirmed
by the artist - who was missed so much in
the past edition of this festival, which saw
him become an artist - the rest of the show,
a concert like so many others which contributes
a different development; this time, a journey
through Andalusian territory. Pregón,
romance, soleá, taranto, tangos, alegrías,
bulerías, and of course, fandangos
de Huelva are some of the many styles - most
of them, from his usual repertoire - touched
on by the Huelva-born cantaor. All of it,
personalized according to his unique echo
and exquisitely arranged by two guitarists
whose complicity is on the rise: Miguel
Ángel Cortés and Daniel
Méndez. There was also compás
and choruses. What wasn’t there was
interest in looking after those other details
so fundamental for performances at a theater.
The audiovisuals were a disaster (which even
tarnished a little remembrance of Mario Maya),
the transitions between pieces weren’t
looked after, and the lighting was very inattentive.
So much so, that you have to imagine how Torombo
danced his little spin por bulerías.
Arcángel
and Miguel Ángel Cortés (Photo
Daniel Muñoz)
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tomorrow…
· 'De la mar al fuego'
Teatro de la Maestranza, 8:30 p.m.
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