2003 FESTIVAL DE JEREZ
Eva la Yerbabuena: The Voice of Silence (Villamarta Theater)

Ecstasy

Silvia Calado Olivo. Jerez, March 2nd, 2003
Photos: Daniel Muñoz
Translation: Joseph Kopec

If 'The Voice of Silence' has a virtue, it's that it lifts Eva la Yerbabuena off the ground towards a state of ecstasy which makes her become just a substance, without losing her body form. The Granada-born bailaora, as if in a trance, ends up dancing on stage (or levitating, who knows?) a soleá which, as an end, blurs the means. And, on such an occasion, she ends up not only transmitting but also trapping the feelings of the recipient, who must hopelessly feel lucky to have taken part in this ceremony of artistic communication. Tears have dampened these words, denying any trace of objectivity. The reader has been forewarned. We're only human.

Eva la Yerbabuena

But let's try to distance ourselves... In Jerez Eva la Yerbabuena displayed a show positively revised following the premiere at Seville's Bienal de Flamenco. Stripped of possible ornaments such as the poem reciter, the expressive possibilities of the dance corps taken advantage of with greater determination, it is easier to swallow. And that doesn't mean that the theatricality impressed upon the work has evaded the resources of effects predictable for being so faded. Nor that it lacks elements which impressively spin the story of that woman who debates her destiny trapped in the state of a coma. The music by Paco Jarana - which has the attribute, besides the extreme beauty and brilliant execution at the hands of Antonio Coronel (percussion), Salvador Gutiérrez (guitar) and Ignacio Vidaechea (sax/flute), of inviting one not to distinguish between one style or another... flows and that's it -, the script and scenography by Hansel Cereza - with spectacular motifs for what flamenco in drama format usually offers -; the lighting by Ziggy Durán; cante by Segundo Falcón, Enrique Soto and Pepe de Pura; and even the original wardrobe by Francis Montesinos create the very best ambience, tension and intention for dancing which is so often dance because of contemporary dancer Patrick de Bana, who along with the star performs a beautiful, heartrending scene of submission and liberation; of Edu Lozano; and of Eva herself. Commotion, that was the cause. And an uncontainable ovation, the consequence.

For this and all of the shows programmed at the festival to be put on every night at the Villamarta Theater requires quite a bit of economic machinery to have been put into motion beforehand. And on this matter the undersigned had opened a discussion that very morning at the San Ginés Winery, as a result of the presentation of a study entitled 'The Business of El Quejío' which, despite receiving a grant from Seville's Bienal, this institution has decided to leave unpublished. Following the introduction by Fernando Onrubia, delegate of the business daily 'Expansión' in Andalusia, we explained the present reality of the economic network in charge of the production and distribution of flamenco which, in synthesis, is fighting to put aside the nuisance of the disorganization which survival and duende (magic) have established; and which is tending towards professional management, which involves no fewer challenges. The subject caused one of the most heated debates so far included in 'The round tables at the winery'. That left the instigators with the sensation that something is fortunately changing. And that is said by the author of a work which, for the time being, remains silenced by duende.

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