2004 JEREZ FLAMENCO FESTIVAL
Tribute to Angelita Gómez

Soul

Silvia Calado. Jerez, March 10th, 2004
Photos: Daniel Muñoz
Translation: Joseph Kopec

Artist credits. Angelita Gómez, María del Mar Moreno: baile. Melchora Ortega, Fernando Terremoto, Antonio Malena, Luis Moneo, Luis de Pacote: cante. Domingo Rubichi, Santiago Moreno, Pascual de Lorca: guitar. Fernando Terremoto Peña Group: cante and baile. Artistic direction: Belén Candil. Special collaboration by Pepa Montes on baile with Segundo Falcón and Enrique Soto on cante, Ricardo Miño on guitar, Pedro Ricardo Miño on piano, Antonio Barrul on percussion and Bobote and Eléctrico on clapping. Villamarta Theater. Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz, Spain), March 10th, 2004. 9 p.m.

This last review is written in grief. And it is a declaration of life and liberty. Scarcely a few hours after this festival was closed, the terrorism made a brutal attack in Madrid against liberty, against the right to be people and to live on personal experiences such as the artistic, an act of sharing feelings, beauty, soul. Hundreds of people have been killed or wounded. Let the absolute discord, indignation and grief felt by those who believe in peace be put on record here. Enough.

Terremoto and Angelita Gómez

Retired from stages for four decades, but committed to spreading baile flamenco. There were plenty of reasons to pay tribute to Jerez-born bailaora Angelita Gómez. This homage was shaped into a show: 'Ayer y siempre' ('Yesterday and Always'). A top-notch cantaor group accompanied her, consisting of Fernando Terremoto, Melchora Ortega, Antonio Malena, Luis Moneo and Luis de Pacote, who were seconded on toque by the guitars of Domingo Rubichi, Santiago Moreno and Pascual de Lorca. Rocked by all of them, she recalled that past baile which has been drawn on by the one who took over where she left off, María del Mar Moreno. Between them all, they managed to create feeling, get across emotions and show that what is shared is triply valuable. The tribute, which stage director Belén Candil had strung together, was inexplicably interrupted by Pepa Montes, who offered her show completely detached from the tribute that was being paid to her colleague. And the thing is that far from offering a touch of her repertoire, she cornered the stage for over an hour, together with guitarist Ricardo Miño and pianist Pedro Ricardo Miño, her husband and son. Without comparing unfavorably the artistic category of this Sevillian family, the truth is that it was neither the time nor the place.

Angelita Gómez pulled a flamenco dress with a train and a shawl out of her trunk, stationed herself on one side of the stage and let herself be rocked, to the sound of a polo, by Melchora Ortega's cante of mastered strength. "The mirror you're looking in will tell you what you're like, but it'll never tell you the feelings you have". The baile at a standstill, with an aftertaste, a relic. María del Mar Moreno, a declared seguiriyera, shared with Antonio Malena a liviana, so from within, so deep, that it trembled. The scenography, a folding screen with deformed mirrors, was unnecessary, a check for these artists who show so much when they dialogue freely on stage. The cante, magnificent. The baile, from the land, from within, from revived roots. The 'corrío' sung together by Luis de Pacote and Luis Moneo at the front of the stage, that of the captive Christian Anne of Alexandria, was of extreme beauty, for the performance and the unusualness of this style. The show experienced 'coitus interruptus' with the participation of the special guest star.

	Angelita Gómez and María del Mar Moreno

After the intermission, maestra and pupil starred in the most special number of the night, a romance in which Angelita Gómez made the dream come true and the satisfaction of sharing the stage with her "little girl". Surrounded by a remarkable cantaor quartet, they staged the changeover. From maestra to disciple. Tears in their eyes, the emotion skin-deep. The disciple flushed, the maestra containing her. "How beautiful!" is shouted from the audience. And so it was. María del Mar Moreno remained alone with the soleá. She danced it with character, with sincerity, without giving herself up, without the need for a cover. She danced the cante from the most to the least, with everything and hardly anything. And that face. And those hands. And that gutsy way of standing firm, absorbing bulerías which strolled between Jerez and the Sevillian countryside. Melchora Ortega, milder and more mature every year, sang tientos, before the tribute recipient returned with the seguiriya. Fernando Terremoto Jr. sang it to her, and it was dedicated to his father, Terremoto de Jerez, "wherever you are, together with other colleagues of ours, I want to send you the duende I could feel while I was dancing to your cante". The old hallmark was projected in the background, after the cantaor and bailaora on stage had left the audience breathless. Outwards from within. The Fernando Terremoto Peña Group, thirteen artists, sang and danced through bulerías the way people from Jerez know how. The entire company joined the party, giving out more art, more guts, more emotion at the front of the stage. They all left their soul there. And it was picked up by a crowd that will keep a bit of that soul until next year, since life has to take those little sips of beauty, feeling, person.

A positive result

The festival finishes taking stock of itself. A while before the show, its director, Paco López, explained this edition's data, which he interpreted as positive. "This festival of international magnitude has taken yet another step forward on its way towards what we hope it will be in a few years: a huge festival". A total of 22,100 people took part in nearly one hundred scheduled activities, with an average occupancy index of 96 percent, compared to 19,500 participants in the previous edition. The training courses, in which over seven hundred students were registered, has redrawn the map of enthusiasts, consolidating Japan, Germany and Taiwan in the top three positions, ahead of Spain. The director highlighted as new trends "the presence of China, the growth of North America and the increase in the presence in Latin America". Regarding the contents of the festival, he pointed out that, "once again this year, it was a showcase of everything happening in baile flamenco and Spanish dancing, gathering and realizing the huge variety there is, of how immense this living art is". He put flamenco on the same level as the rest of the arts to conclude that, therefore, "there are attempts that are mistaken and not everything goes down in history; and this festival presents both kinds". In his participation, López alluded to a feedback effect: "The world takes a look at Jerez, but Jerez also takes a look at the world; may fresh air come in so that we thus grow and become enriched, since to be universal you have to have your eyes wide open". Without forgetting to thank the seventy people making up the organizational team and the accredited press, he passed the floor to the sponsors he was sharing the table with - Ono, Unicaja, Diario de Jerez, Sherry Wine Regulatory Council, Bodega González Byass- and the culture delegate of Jerez City Council, who reaffirmed their commitment to the festival and emphasized that "it not only creates a public, but also wealth".

Paco López

magazine@flamenco-world.com