2003 FESTIVAL DE JEREZ

Cristina Hoyos Ballet: Tierra Adentro (Villamarta Theater)
Mayte Martín: Boleros (The Apostles Winery)

Song (danced) to life

Silvia Calado Olivo. Jerez, February 27th, 2003
Photos: Daniel Muñoz
Translation: Joseph Kopec

"CULTURE AGAINST THE WAR ". A black banner, the color of death, with this inscription in red, the color of blood, dropped the first curtain of the 7th Festival de Jerez. It was held by the Cristina Hoyos Company while receiving the deserved inaugural ovation. They had just staged 'Tierra Adentro', a danced regard towards the Andalusian mining world. The show, which has been reaping in success after success ever since it premiered in Valencia last year, lays out a dialogue between life and death through the most cinematographic dance and the most Levantine flamenco. With resources strongly bearing Gades' mark such as light with contents, such as the simultaneity of foreground and background, such as the exhibition of the script in scenes... the Sevillian bailaora and choreographer tells through flashbacks how the existence goes by of a people whose destiny is marked by the rhythm set by the bowels of the land. Outstanding, besides the fitting packaging, the group dance, with special mentions to Cristina Hoyos, for the mature control of her abilities; and for El Junco, for taking flight. A show with impressive quality for dramatic flamenco's current panorama.

The show was attended by an audience as native as it was foreign, the latter mainly registered in the course and workshop program. How the feet of Isabel Bayón's students resounded por seguiriyas at Romero Martínez Square that very afternoon when the sun was still shining! And the thing is that there are already over seven hundred students signed up in this training course which is becoming a university for flamenco dancing. The local fans, on their part, were seen to rush up to the line at the theater box office just minutes before the start of the first show of what the local press calls the "Jerez Coliseum ". Why not?

The Singing Café

The night gave no respite. Following days of downpour, it stopped raining, so the weather wasn't even an excuse. There was an item marked on the agenda at nearly midnight in a new series ('The Singing Café. Singing cantaors') and place for the Jerez festival: The Apostles Winery, one of González Byass' facilities that can be visited, which takes its name from the twelve barrels baptized as the disciples of Jesus Christ. There, positioned in the same order as in Leonardo's painting (or at least that's what they say around here), they backed the singer (and not cantaora, on this occasion) Mayte Martín. On such an exceptional stage, with the smell of wine and oak, she came to present -accompanied by Olvido Lanza on the violin, José Reinoso on the piano and Horacio Fumero on the contrabass - her new bolero album, entitled 'Tiempo de amar'. With songs by Manuel Alejandro, Armando Manzanero and Pedro Flores, she touched an audience which more than flamenco (despite including, among others, Matilde Coral, Rafael el Negro, Manolete, Javier Latorre), could be called sensitive. And it was nice to see tears flowing and the olés were nice and Mayte Martín's voice was extremely beautiful, today a singer, in a few days, a cantaora.

For the given night owl at the same time thirsty for basic flamenco, there was still the late-night crowd... until dawn.

magazine@flamenco-world.com