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2006 JEREZ FLAMENCO FESTIVAL. ISRAEL GALVÁN
On the other side of
silence
Silvia Calado. Jerez, March 9th, 2006
Photos: Daniel Muñoz
‘Tabula rasa’. Israel Galván:
baile. Inés Bacán: cante. Diego Amador: piano.
10th Jerez Festival 2006. Sala La Compañía.
Jerez (Cádiz, Spain), March 9th, 2006. Midnight
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Israel Galván
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz) |
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“He hates baile so much that he's tried to mock art,
and an abstract painting's come out of him, surrealist, a
Picasso, a Dalí”. Words from maestra Matilde
Coral referring to Israel Galván. Twelve hours of reflection
passed from when she uttered them until the start of the show.
After ‘Tabula rasa’, such a theory proved limited.
But no other alternative was fitting to establish, either.
Sometimes human minds cannot explain certain phenomena.
Let's move on to the facts. Back angle. Diego Amador on piano.
He plays several pieces off ‘Piano jondo’. He
wears them away. Soleá. Bulerías. Seguiriyas.
Tangos. Fade out. Left angle. Sitting on a simple table. Inés
Bacán sings. Raw cante. Her bare palm against the wood.
Monumental grief beseeching heaven, from the altar. The minute
hand spins around nearly sixty times. Right angle. Israel
Galván.
Flamenco history changes in the next forty minutes. Israel
Galván dances what the silence has gathered from the
piano and cante. Israel Galván dances what the silence
has gathered from the piano and cante. Israel Galván
dances what the silence has gathered from the piano and cante.
He dances the silence. Medium. He translates into movement
something that is only inside him, which only he can hear,
which only he can feel. Telluric communication. Something
possesses him. It can't be a simple mockery of art. Two hundred
creatures are in a state of shock. A shock which breaks something
that causes nervous laughter: he strikes his fingers against
his teeth. He sits down on the pianist's bench. The pianist's
soul creeps into him. He sinks his feet in resin. He sits
down on the cantaora's chair. The cantaora's soul creeps into
him. He translates it to movement. And between the movement
suggested to him by the silence, splinters of flamenco dancing
apparently unconnected, but indisputably canonical. He breaks
the musical structures. Nobody did it before, did they? The
triangle is closed. The lullaby is dream and death. Barefoot.
You shall be a man like all men. Swear you'll be a bailaor.
Inés Bacán (Photo:
Daniel Muñoz)
| Master class
Matilde Coral
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz)
Aída
Gómez
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz)
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A round-table about women's baile.
Matilde
Coral and Victoria Eugenia are veteran maestras
who attend the Teatro Villamarta every night.
Exceptional spectators whose analysis of the current
state of female baile was a real treat for those
attending the noon encounter. Nearly more so than
any practical class. And that goes for the course
pupils, who hardly come to this daily event. The
maestras, moderated - as far as possible - by
Silvia Calado, contents editor of Flamenco-world.com,
pointed out highlights from the last few days,
such as the performances by Merche Esmeralda and
Manuela Carrasco. Matilde Coral observes a calm
moment in female shapes: “It seems that
women want to be women again”. Victoria
Eugenia stressed that “women have many more
resources in baile to use; we don't need men's”.
Afterwards the matter thinned out and they talked
about art, flamenco dancing in general, Israel
Galván's creation, batas de cola, the audience,
the dancer's job, ugliness... A master class worthy
of not falling into oblivion. The afternoon continued
with a twin performance without a microphone at
Palacio de Villavicencio by El
Pitingo and Macarena Moneo. And from the coziness
of flamenco without intermediaries to the paraphernalia
of a high-budget show at the Teatro Villamarta.
Yet another version of ‘Carmen’; that
of dancer Aida Gómez. Exactly a year ago
on this very stage, bailaor Antonio Canales presented
his vision of the trite, withered work. If he
opted for a precise script, with hardly the elements,
actions and characters needed to express the feelings
enclosed in the novel with baile as a tool, the
dancer wanted just the contrary. She didn't skimp
on the number of characters or movements around
the stage, but her show's failing was in the script,
the choreographic order and even the baile. The
flamenco was mere decoration amidst a jumble of
dances which were hardly chalked up, which went
little beyond gestures. Sssssshhhhhh. Carmen?
What Carmen? It all ended up as a mere anecdote
past midnight... the midnight when flamenco history
changed.
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