2004 JEREZ FLAMENCO FESTIVAL
Isabel Bayón. 'Del alma'

Naked baile

Silvia Calado. Jerez, March 3rd, 2004
Photos: Daniel Muñoz
Translation: Joseph Kopec

Artist credits. 'Del alma' ('From the Soul'). Bailaora: Isabel Bayón. Guest bailaor: Fernando Romero. Cante: Miguel Ortega, Vicente Gelo. Guitar: Jesús Torres, Paco Arriaga, Manuel Pérez. Cello: Gretchen Talbot. Percussion: Nacho López. Villamarta Theater. Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz, Spain), March 3rd, 2004. 9 p.m.

Isabel Bayón and Fernando Romero

"I let that part of the artist be made out that we leave behind". Isabel Bayón let it be known that she would do away with all garb and would display herself as such on stage. The vehicle is 'Del alma', the Sevillian bailaora's first solo show, premiered in Seville's last Bienal, an elegant example of creation, honest work, flight from the obvious and empty filling. With music as the connecting thread, different bailes follow each other which she performs both solo and together with Fernando Romero, guest bailaor and choreographer. The peculiarity of this sincere, intimate show is that styles in disuse are danced such as the mariana, the rondeña and the corrido gitano. And that's all. The rest is baile, just baile and a lot of baile.

Isabel Bayón

The show commences with a dressing room scene on stage, with the theater's lights still turned on: putting on shoes, finishing getting dressed, stretching. When the lights are turned off, the first movements take shape before the mirror, which drops to the sound of a cello with absolute serenity. Her arm, hand, shoulder, hip, regard... When the guitar joins the conversation, she turns slightly, a brush of her feet is heard, while she sways in the half-light, silky, deceiving. Hypersensitivity. A malagueña to the cante of an 'archangelic' echo serves as a prelude to the jaleo 'Pormedio'. The bailaora bursts in from behind between cantaor and guitarist, taking her dancing from less to more. From rest, her hand and waving to the extroverted toying with rhythm, to open flirtation, to feeling. The musicians change the arrangement and cante again moves forward, this time with a traditional soleá apolá.

She offers the show's climax together with Fernando Romero, author of the choreography, in the rondeña 'Capricho'. With a circular structure beginning and ending with the bailaor dancing abstractly all the way from one end of the stage to the other, this dance for two turns out to be an example of good taste, elegance and creative intelligence. They play with the two planes, with the inequality; they flee from all the obvious, from all absurd dramatization, even from physical contact. The relationship with the music is entirely enriching, the communication of the movement and the note always maintains expressive intentionality. Following an instrumental passage, the bailaora returns alone with a mariana which, upon leading into tangos, shows that sensual but renewed woman of the Sevillian school, since Isabel Bayón knows how to balance the scales between yesterday and today. Another musical transition and another change in the arrangement of musicians leads to the second dance for two, the corrido gitano 'Suspiro', also choreographed by Fernando Romero. This bailaor so precise, so personal, so technically perfect, so intense, dances while waiting for his partner to come out of the dark. She ends up alone, in the diagonal line formed by the two cantaores standing and the cello. And she there offers, first individually and afterwards in a twosome, an advanced and simple way of resolving a baile to the beat of seguiriyas. The piece concludes with a crescendo in which the roads split up: he disappearing in the middle of a trance, she remaining alone with her soul... until the strings of the cello stop vibrating and the lights go out.

Flamenco from all over the world

The day had other flamenco moments. If in the afternoon at Sala La Compañía - the venue visited the day before by still child prodigy on the guitar Javier Conde - the brothers Santiago and José Lara, Jerez-born guitarist and cantaor, advanced information on the album they are scheduled to come out with before summer, with the collaboration of bailaora Mercedes Ruiz; at midday, at Bodega de San Ginés, the first shift of courses was closed. It was not clear who the female students paid more attention to, whether it was to the maestros or the idolized Farruquito, who dropped in at the round-table to present 'Alma vieja'. All of them wanted to get their picture taken with the "in" bailaor, of course. And smiling, he saw to it as a gentleman. Where were we? A representation of instructors and students gathered to bid each other farewell, to give thanks, and of course, to show how much progress had been made in the lessons. Inmaculada Aguilar, Javier Barón, Manolete, Angelita Gómez and Matilde Coral got up on stage with their pupils, brimming with gratitude both to the organization and the students who come "to learn from our culture" from every country in the world. As an example, Angelita Gómez called out a Taiwanese to dance through bulerías. May it not be said that flamenco is not a universal art.

magazine@flamenco-world.com