BIENAL DE FLAMENCO DE SEVILLA
2008
ISABEL BAYÓN, ‘TÓRTOLA VALENCIA’
Glory
Silvia Calado. Seville, September 29th, 2008
‘Tórtola Valencia’.
Isabel Bayón: baile, choreography.
Matilde Coral: special baile collaboration. Miguel Poveda:
special cante collaboration. Juanfra Juárez: actor.
Miguel Ortega, El Pulga, Moi de Morón: cante. Jesús
Torres, Paco Arriaga: guitars, musical score. El Pájaro:
percussion. Rafa el Viola: viola. Pepa Gamboa: director.
Antonio Álamo: dramatic art. 15th Bienal de Flamenco
de Sevilla 2008. Teatro Lope de Vega. Seville, September
29th, 2008. 9 p.m.
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Isabel
Bayón (Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
There are moments that make entire festivals
worthwhile. Matilde
Coral moves her arms in the most wounding silence.
Isabel
Bayón, reflection, mirror. The maestra who
starts dancing. Miguel Poveda, who rips out his chest
to sing for her. And she, wise and old, aims and shoots
without beating around the bush, without blanks. Straight
to emotion, to the soul, to beyond. The pupil cries …
and half the theater with her. Flowers, to the heavens.
Glory is sometimes touched. Glory sometimes has hands,
feet, hips and even wings. But above all else, huge wisdom.
(*)
With a flash of her shawl, Matilde Coral
closed the curtain. And the END of the story of Tórtola
Valencia was thus staged, but not her own. “Past
glory was never my rival”, the enigmatic dancer
born in Triana who became an artist in London is said
to have uttered. Fatal, inconstant, diva, alone. The voice
in off might exaggerate when affirming that she was comparable
to Duncan and Pavlova. But perhaps, like them, she did
seek her own way away from the constraints of her era,
creating a mysterious, exotic, free personage who acted
as a magnet and armor at the same time.
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Isabel
Bayón
(Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
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Isabel Bayón didn’t duplicate
her bailes, since nobody really knows what they were like.
What she does is imagine them her own way, in her time
and with flamenco. She uses the names of her numbers,
and lets herself be inspired. ‘La serpiente’
turns into winding tangos. ‘La mariposa’ becomes
a delicate guajira with two fans. ‘Minueto’,
a personal farruca. ‘La danza del incienso’,
a chilling soleá. All of these are reasons to discover
new curves in the bailaora’s dance lexicon. Waves,
arches, rings, roundness. And all of it superimposed is
like a dream, like bewitchment.
What’s true is that it’s
hard to really get into the show, since all the weight
rests on that so apparently simple way of dancing. But
you just have to go with the flow to let that discourse
come through. Contributing to it is the music composed
specifically for it by guitarists Paco Arriaga and Jesús
Torres, seasoned live by percussions and viola. And
it will contribute more when it sounds with the elegance
and subtlety that this project requires, and those scores
deserve. And the thing is that the music largely determines
the textures of the baile. The three cantaor voices (a
delight to see Miguel
Ortega once again around here) act as seasons of re-encounter
with the most purely flamenco, since the score flies quite
freely. But this show’s freedom is regulated, with
a little bit of dramatic art, with its audiovisual intervals,
with its palpable directing. It will still need to be
catalyzed after this premiere, but for the time being,
it already has the incalculable merit of having offered
the best possible tribute to Matilde Coral while she is
alive and still has her dancing shoes on.
(*) And if we regrettably don’t
have any photos to show it and leave such a special moment
on the record, it’s because the organization only
lets photographers work (except its own official one)
in the brief photo sessions prior to the performances.
Isabel Bayón (Photo
Daniel Muñoz)
Pedro Ricardo
Miño
(Photo Bienal de Sevilla © C. Corrales) |
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And
tomorrow…
• Pedro Ricardo
Miño, ‘Enclave’
Teatro Central, 9 p.m.
Sevillian pianist Pedro Ricardo
Miño premieres the concert ‘Enclave’,
which is going to be recorded live. The musician,
who made his album début with ‘Piano
con duende’, announces a turn in his
music in this new repertoire which he’s
going to reveal accompanied by instruments
such as contrabass, percussions, violin and,
as was announced at the last minute, the cante
of Estrella Morente.
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