DUTCH FLAMENCO BIENNIAL
2008. ANDRÉS MARÍN. INAUGURATION
Flanders goes flamenco
Photo gallery,
by Daniel Muñoz
Silvia Calado. Amsterdam, October 26th, 2008
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image to enlarge |
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Andrés
Marín (Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
These days, a full-size Osborne bull
is welcoming the extravagant Hotel Lloyd. And it is just
one of the signs that in Amsterdam the second edition
has already kicked off of Flamenco Biennale 2008, a festival
interconnected with the cities of Rotterdam and Utrecht
(or as the enthusiasts from here call it jokingly, Northern
Utrera) which wants to show that tradition and innovation
go hand-in-hand. The first thing that happened was to
put this artform in perspective. And to do so, nothing
better than taking a look at one of the most faithful
documents of what this art used to give of itself thirty
years ago: the television series ‘Rito
y geografía del cante’.
One of its authors, José María
Velázquez-Gaztelu, made his way to the downtown
cinema The Movies, where a children’s film festival
was being held at the same time. And in a cute movie theater
covered in ancient red velvet, he spoke not just about
how he was cajoled as a boy by cante in Arcos de la Frontera,
but also about how and with what aims the now valuable
audiovisual document was forged between 1971 and 1973.
No fewer than 186 cantaores appeared before those cameras
which sought to portray the naturalness of flamenco in
its own ecosystem, to rescue some from oblivion, to highlight
the bravery of others. At night there were still neophytes
commenting on the impact which the footage of Fernanda
de Utrera had on them.
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José María
Velázquez-Gaztelu (Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
And the thing is that there is still
an audience to enamor after a hundred-some years of the
internationalization of this artform. Not just that. It
also has to be informed and shown that there is much more
than polka dots and magic and passion and fury. Here lies
one of the missions. That is why festival director Ernestina
van de Noort aims to “reflect flamenco’s current
trends, to sketch a panorama of the avant-garde and the
risky” with this lineup. But she knows that “even
here in Holland, it isn’t easy; I know that if I
put up a ‘gypsy party’ bill, it’d sell
out”. But according to what was seen on the night
of the opening show, the audience is currently as receptive
here as in Seville. As much as the Parisians were at the
beginning of the past century when the futuristic adventure
occurred to Vicente Escudero of dancing to the sound of
engines.
Flamenco Biennale 2008
(Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
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The adventure continues, luckily for
this flamenco which boasts of evolving. And it does so
with the devotion of those who create and the complicity
of those who receive. The bold experience of merging the
personal body movement, the sound of Llorenç Barber’s
bells, José Valencia and Segundo Falcón’s
cante, Salvador Gutiérrez’s toque and Antonio
Coronel’s rhythm which Andrés Marín
performs in ‘El cielo de tu boca’ (recently
premiered at Bienal de Sevilla 2008) ended up bringing
the diverse crowd at the Muziekgebouw ann’t IJ to
its feet. Something doubly important, since this auditorium
is a real temple of contemporary music.
But there was something more in that
ovation, something dear in the audience’s response.
Especially from a part of the crowd consisting of enthused
young women. And the thing is that the Sevillian bailaor
has been coming to this land for twenty years to share
his knowledge. “I’ve trained all of them myself”,
the artist confirmed, still touched by the affectionate
‘Happy Birthday’ he was sung by them between
rounds of applause. They even took him some cakes to the
cocktail party following the performance, in which a ham
cutter and a manzanilla wine waiter delighted the guests.
Among them was even the Spanish Ambassador to Holland,
Juan Prat y Coll, a Catalan who understands that “flamenco
is a sophisticated artistic expression which has to represent
Spanish culture in the world”.
Andrés Marín
(Photo Daniel Muñoz)
