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FESTIVAL DE JEREZ 2007. ROCÍO MOLINA • ÚRSULA
LÓPEZ • LA MACANITA
...her dancing (in the almario)
Silvia Calado. Jerez, February 27th, 2007
‘Almario’. Rocío
Molina: baile, choreography, production. José
Valencia, Antonio Campos: cante. Francisco Cruz, Juan
Requena: guitar. Antonio Coronel, Sergio Martínez:
percussion. Guadalupe Torres, Popi: clapping. Miguel Serrano:
stage director. 11th Festival de Jerez. Teatro Villamarta
(Jerez, Cádiz), February 27th, 2007. 9 p.m.
Rocío Molina (Photo:
Daniel Muñoz)
“If there’s a sincere soul,
may it keep its singing (in the almario or ‘soul
closet’)”. Change ‘singing’ to
‘dancing’ and apply the verse by Blas de Otero
to Rocío
Molina. The Málaga-born bailaora bared her
bailaora soul in the private setting of her wardrobe.
For each dress, a baile. For each baile, a soul. The message
was clear: “Be yourself”, written on the mirror
in lipstick. And have no doubt; she was herself. The artist
defines her own style for each performance, though it
seems soon, really soon. But her aim is so clear, such
is her determination in facing her task, that she leaves
the audience flabbergasted. She went non-stop for an hour
and fifteen minutes. Resorting to changing clothes live
- similar to Isabel Bayón in ‘La puerta abierta’,
but without hiding – allowed for a continuous structure,
flawlessly weaving together one baile after another, like
a single baile in perpetual metamorphosis. And thus the
channel of energy was not interrupted at any moment, but
rather to the contrary, it grew and grew.
She’d already said it at the press
conference: “Nobody can stop me”. And much
less so in matters of freedom. So she came out on stage
decked out in a short tight-fighting leather dress, with
a matching short jacket and high boots. Her wheat-colored
hair loose, her pace firm. And she danced in such a way,
following the musical introduction por tanguillos, a splendid
taranto inspired by that of Fernanda Romero. And she does
so in the ‘L’ shaped by musicians and cantaores
on the right-hand side of the stage, concentrating the
intensity. The cards are on the table. An old-time guitar
can be heard; that of Sabicas. And she gets up on a wooden
bench while wrapped in the black bata de cola which squeezes
in between esthetic figures. You don’t know how,
but she and the bench are in the middle, awaiting the
quejío by Antonio Campos, who sings a seguiriya
for her with the sweetness of a lullaby. Taking Pilar
López’s ways (including castanets) to her
world, she proves to be complex, exquisite and personal.
The development was spectacular, and the finish (see
video) with the huge José
Valencia on stage was spectacular.
A time to tone things down, to loosen
up the go and feelings. The girls in charge of the compás
helped her to get undressed and slip on a pair of black
trousers. And then out comes all of Rocío’s
insolence. Fresh and paradoxical, she does a remix of
cockiness which even revisits Marisol. The crowd gets
it and shouts and applauds and splits its sides with laughter
with such a garrotín. My wild girl still has another
dress in the ‘almario’, a garnet dress with
a Manila
shawl, which introduces her in the soleá. Sketch,
spiral, momentum. The musicians make a line behind her...
and the bulería appears. And everything with painstaking
care. An interlude of danced lies. And the process of
undressing, of letting herself dance, of leaving feet,
body, mind and soul even freer. The next generation is
now here; a new school has arrived.
Rocío Molina and
Antonio Campos (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)
De la Frontera Series. Úrsula
López, ‘Abriendo caminos’
After her deep training as
lead dancer of the Compañía
Andaluza de Danza and the Ballet Nacional
de España, Úrsula
López upholds her individuality.
At Sala Compañía, the Córdoba-born
bailaora premiered the show ‘Abriendo
caminos’, her first solo work. She was
brimming over with esthetics and elegance
throughout the show, consisting of pieces
with high quality in esthetics and technique,
backed by the oneiric music by Daniel Méndez
and Javier Patino. She appeared solo por seguiriyas
with castanets, then continuing in a duo with
her sister Tamara in a pictorial, sensual
choreography por tangos. Following the batch
of fandangos by the cantaores (olé
to that of David
Lagos), she returned wearing a spectacular
red bata de cola, redesigning her slender
figure. Preciosity in her arms, and in general,
a huge repertoire of movements. With a select
range of them, she shaped the bambera-romance,
about a poem by Lorca. She made room for bailaor
Mariano Bernal to display his farruca, after
which the bailaora came back dressed in white
por cantiñas. Classicism and flamencura
are one in Úrsula López.
Úrsula
López (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)
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| Singing Café Series. La Macanita
(Photo: Daniel
Muñoz)
The series devoted to the
great female voices of today’s cante
continued with La
Macanita. With a jam-packed audience at
Bodega de Los Apóstoles, the Jerez-born
cantaora offered a complete performance dedicated
to Fernanda de Utrera and La Paquera.
CD:
La Macanita. Jerez. Xères. Sherry
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| Presentation by Editorial Almuzara
The time for the round-table
held every day at noon was occupied by books.
The Córdoba-based publisher Editorial
Almuzara presented its flamenco collection,
which now includes titles such as ‘El
baile flamenco’, ‘El flamenco
en Cádiz’ and ‘Historia
de la guitarra flamenca’. The director
of the publishing house, Manuel Pimentel,
stated that he aims to “make the best
collection of flamenco books”. And he
advanced that he is now zeroing in on teaching,
a branch which will complement the main lines
of publications which, as the head of the
flamenco section, Génesis García,
explained, are “information, essay and
musicology”. Among the upcoming books
to be published are features on the flamenco
in Jerez and Granada, and about celebrities
like Lola Flores.
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| And tomorrow...
Youths rule. The sixth day
of the festival stars artists from the latest
generation. At Sala Compañía
at midnight, the trio of bailaores consisting
of Olga
Pericet, Marcos Flores and Manuel Liñán
present ‘En clave’. According
to the bailaora, it is a show “simple
in composition, though flamenco is always
complicated”. The Teatro Villamarta
will welcome the show by Andrés
Peña and Pilar Ogalla, ‘A
fuego lento’. The pair explained that
“our bailes are really different, but
they have something which connects... it must
be the land”. And alluding to the title,
they said that the show “is warmed up
slowly, smoothly, without shrillness”.
And in the evening at the Alcázar,
cantaora Mari Ángeles Fernández
will dare to sing without a microphone hand-to-hand
with the audience. Though aware that “it’s
a blessing to be Tomatito’s daughter”,
she made it clear that she wants to fight
to make a place for herself, allowing herself
to be guided by the great maestros of the
past: “You can’t copy from the
ones now because each one applies his own
technique; I prefer to look at Chacón,
Manuel Torres, Escacena...”.
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