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2004 JEREZ FESTIVAL
Mario Maya Company. 'Un, dos, tres, faaa...'
Regard. Mind. Body
Silvia Calado. Jerez, February 28th, 2004
Photos: Daniel Muñoz
Translation: Joseph Kopec
Artist credits. Mario Maya Company. 'Un, dos, tres,
faaa...'. Mario Maya: direction, choreography and music. Belén Maya, Rafaela
Carrasco and Alejandro Granados: guest artists and choreography. Coral Benítez,
Mariana González, Mayte Beltrán, Estefanía Martínez,
Rocío Martín: dancers. Anabel Álvarez, Silvia Lozano, Lucila
Guiote, Sandra Guerrero, Esther Vélez: bailaoras. Raimundo Benítez,
Iván Vargas, Miguel Becerra, Juan Carlos Simón, José Manuel
Galván. Antonio Campos, David Lagos: cante. Emilio Maya, Marcos García,
Jesús Torres: guitar. Diego Carrasco, José Antonio Rodríguez,
Jesús Torres, Diego Amador: original score. Villamarta Theater. Jerez (Cádiz,
Spain), February 28th, 2004. 9 p.m.
Jerez and Granada shake hands. The Jerez festival gave the first chance to
present his new project to the public to a veteran maestro who really wants to
keep making a contribution: Mario
Maya. At the front of the Flamenco Center for Performing Studies, situated
in the neighborhood of Sacromonte in Granada, the bailaor and choreographer came
to this other flamenco land championing the show 'Un, dos, tres, faaa...', his
new company's letter of presentation. The audience made a gesture of complicity
and backed the project one hundred percent, which led to enjoyment both on and
off stage. The show even got started in an original way. Mario Maya, text in hand,
made a brief début speech and introduced the lesson which, as would later
be shown, had already been learned. He made maestros and guest artists Belén
Maya, Rafaela Carrasco and Alejandro Granados bring out their respective pupils
- seated on the floor and in rehearsal clothes - to put into practice a variation
of the seguiriya, another of the soleá and another of bulerías,
the show's three pillars. He put an end to this warm-up exercise, resorting to
the interaction between regard, mind, body and spectator for transmission to arise.
And it did.
Alejandro Granados |
Belén Maya and Rafaela carrasco |
'Un, dos, tres, faaa...', whose music includes mainly songs by brilliant heterodox
Diego
Carrasco, intertwines numbers by the company with solo pieces by the guests.
Although practice is obviously still needed, there are plenty of good manners,
especially in the choreography, in the staging. The show is an example of how
to be modern without being tiresome; how to be original without giving up simplicity.
The group movements and the connections between numbers showed true mastery. The
guests had plenty of this. Belén Maya and Rafaela Carrasco had fun through
alegrías decked out in flamenco dresses with a train. Alejandro Granados
came first with the caña and, a little while later, with bulerías
well-dubbed as 'burlerías' ('comical bulerías'), in which he played
with the rhythm, with jokes, laughing and causing laughter. In the meantime, Rafaela
Carrasco made the night's star performance, a malagueña David Lagos sang
for her standing up. The Sevillian bailaora - an artist to be vindicated - took
advantage of this style's musical freedom to pour out all her personal movement,
with so much taste, with so much delicacy... that the audience burst with pleasure.
Belén Maya offered her peculiar dance, so beautiful, so out-of-this-world,
in 'Ritual por seguiriyas', with a mixture of types of music that intended to
refer to the sources: the Arab, the liturgical, the flamenco. The company's male
part collected her and from there, with the song to 'Fernanda', came the farewell...
and a standing ovation.
Lole
The Arab, the flamenco... The connection was going to continue arising a while
afterwards in another setting, that of Bodega de los Apóstoles. Lole, so
awaited, so absent, began her recital singing in Arabic, accompanied by instruments
native to northern Africa such as the derbuka and the tambourine. She did 'La
mil y una noches' from that revolutionary album by Lole
y Manuel, 'Nuevo día', which she also pulled out other songs from,
now just accompanied by a guitar, like the prayer 'Todo es de color', "la
canción de la mariposilla" and other bulerías from this album
of reference. Moreover, Lole performed new songs for the first time, already recorded
on an album which, as she has denounced on several occasions, "still hasn't
come out yet" (and it was supposed to in November). The flamenco Arab song
'Niña alba', the song defending equality between races 'Semejantes', the
ballad 'Hombre poeta', the bulería 'Ni el oro ni la plata'... And all of
it sifted through that voice of a beautiful bird bewailing love, that denounces,
that progresses and looks within. When will record company EMI release the album?
When are they going to let us recover Lole?
Lole
magazine@flamenco-world.com
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