|
|
FESTIVAL DE JEREZ 2007.
BALLET FLAMENCO DE ANDALUCÍA
From Jerez to the world
Silvia Calado. Jerez, February 23rd, 2007
‘Romancero gitano’. Ballet
Flamenco de Andalucía. Baile: Cristina Hoyos, El
Junco. Dance corps: Susana Casas, Cristina Gallego, Rosa
Belmonte, María del Mar Montero, Rocío Alcaide,
Lucía Guarnido, José Luis Vidal, Jesús
Ortega, Jacob Guerrero, Javier Crespo, Daniel Torres,
Abel Harana, Juan A. Jiménez. Musicians: Reyes
Martín, Vicente Gelo, Glori Muñoz (cante),
Andrés Martínez, Ramón Amador (guitar),
Roberto Carlos Jaén (percussion). Script, dramatic
art: José Carlos Plaza. Choreography: Cristina
Hoyos. Music: Pedro Sierra. 11th Festival de Jerez 2007.
Teatro Villamarta. Jerez (Cádiz, Spain), February
23rd, 2007
El Junco on 'Romancero
Gitano' (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)
The long lines at the theater box office,
the coming and going of course students arriving from
all over the world and a special buzz in the streets all
announce that a new edition of Festival de Jerez is underway.
Now past its first decade, the event specialized in baile
shores up its formula with a continuous desire to renovate.
The eleventh edition comes in a female tone, highlighting
women creators of jondo dance and female voices; it is
more educational, with a full program of courses taken
by nearly a thousand students; and it is more aware of
its condition as a forum, which it makes materialize in
the first flamenco festival days. From morning to late
night until March 10th, flamenco is in Jerez in every
corner of a city which, because of the jondo art, opens
up to the world.
The curtain of the Teatro Villamarta
is drawn open this year by the Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía.
The public Andalusian company presented ‘Romancero
gitano’, a show based on the poems by Lorca which
have most inspired flamenco, which premiered last summer
at the Generalife Gardens in Granada. With dramatic art
and script by José Carlos Plaza, the company performs
the narrative of some ten poems in a series of passages
and characters which is worked out with dance, overacted
recitations and projections. And all of it in a scene
representing a group of gypsy nomads, but not Lorca-style
ones, but rather the kind coming nowadays from Eastern
Europe; they travel by van (it’s really on stage),
they end up under concrete highway bridges and know little
about flamenco.
Cristina Hoyos on 'Romancero
Gitano' (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)
A candle, a circle of cante and music
performing the ‘score’ by Pedro Sierra, and
following “verde que te quiero verde”,
the scenes are announced by different styles in group
form, duets and solos. ‘Romance de la luna, luna’,
‘La casada infiel’, ‘La monja gitana’,
‘Romance de la Guardia Civil española’...
are displayed univocally and specifically, without demanding
efforts from spectators who appeared satisfied at all
times. Despite the color and dynamics of the choral scenes,
it isn’t until the final solos when the show really
turns on its charm. It is the appearances by El Junco,
in the role of Antoñito el Camborio, and by Cristina
Hoyos, as Soledad Montoya, which give the show bursts
of intensity and feeling. He, lusty, slender, elegant.
She, mature, aware, twisted like the trunk of one of the
olive trees residing in the verses by Federico.
| Mayte Martín. ‘Querencia’
And
late night, cante. The opening of the Singing
Café Series was a splendid appetizer.
Mayte
Martín returned to the stage where
years ago she performed her bolero repertoire,
but this time flamenco-style. In the first
part, she reeled off the contents of her album
‘Querencia’ calmly and with poise
alone with Juan Ramón Caro on guitar.
Petenera, vidalita, malagueña, seguiriya,
garrotín, guajira... were finely traced
out, reconciling cante with the most exquisite
sweetness of the ‘lyrical’ maestros.
The cantaora was bursting with control and
subtlety, doses and nuances, dazzling an audience
which claimed “to be in seventh heaven”.
Then in the second part, she surrounded herself
with her group to shape up some songs done
flamenco-style from her own repertoire. With
the addition of José Luis Montón
on guitar, Olvido Lanza on violin, Guillermo
Prats on contrabass and Chico Fargas on percussion,
Mayte Martín devoted herself to the
most absolute romanticism with songs like
‘Inténtalo encontrar’ and
‘Ten cuidao’. Cohesion and elegance
behind her in the group gave extra comfort
to the cantaora, who didn’t hesitate
to converse with a crowd she made feel their
own heart.
José Luis
Montón and Mayte Martín (Photo:
Daniel Muñoz)
|
|
| And tomorrow... María del Mar
Moreno. ‘María, María’
On
the stage of the Teatro Villamarta, bailaora
María
del Mar Moreno will sketch out a world
of vital contrasts in ‘María,
María’, her new show which premieres
on February 24th at the 11th Festival de Jerez.
As the Jerez-born bailaora explained at a
press conference, it consists of a journey
playing on the duality “of the traditional
and the universal”. “I’ve
always looked at myself in that contrast.
Every option I have as a woman is valid and
some of them form a duality in my environment”,
the bailaora from Jerez explained. And she
added that “what I want to relate is
the personal enjoyment of a woman specifically
from my generation, who faces a series of
dualities, and more so in my case, since I’m
also an artist”. The bailaora will be
accompanied on the stage of the Teatro Villamarta
by Juan Ogalla, Rocío Marín
and Julián Vicente ‘El Kuki’
on baile, besides the collaboration of Dolores
la Chicharrona, Yoya la del Pipa, La Bastiana
and Rocío Moneo, Antonio Malena and
Ana Salazar on cante, Gorka Hermosa on accordion
and José Luis Montón, author
of the music, on guitar. The other two shows
to be offered on the second day of the festival
will be the baile of Rafael de Carmen at Sala
Compañía and the cante of Carmen
Grilo and Marina
Heredia at Bodega Los Apóstoles.
María
del Mar Moreno explores the female condition
of the bailaora at Festival de Jerez 2007
|
|
|
|
