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FESTIVAL DE JEREZ 2008. ISRAEL GALVÁN, 'EL FINAL DE ESTE ESTADO DE COSAS'
Israel, dance and death
Silvia Calado. Jerez, March 6th, 2008
' El final de este estado de cosas'. Israel Galván : baile, choreography. Diego Carrasco, Juan José Amador, Fernando Terremoto: cante. Alfredo Lagos: guitar. Bobote: clapping, baile. José Carrasco: percussion. Orthodox: Ricardo Jiménez (guitar), Marco Serrato (bass), Borja Díaz (drums). Eloisa Sánchez: violin. José Manuel Vaquero 'Pájaro': mandolin. Proyecto Lorca: Antonio Moreno (percussions), Juan Jiménez Alba (sax). Video projection 'NON, homenaje a Samir Kassir': Zad Moultaka (music), Yalda Younes (baile), Isabelle Jacques (video). Pedro G. Romero: artistic director. Txiki Berraondo: stage director. 12th Festival de Jerez. Teatro Villamarta. Jerez (Cádiz, Spain), March 6th, 2008. 9 p.m.
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Israel Galván (Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
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"Death is stronger than baile". Only someone who has met it close up can make such a statement. It isn't Israel Galván who says it, but rather his Lebanese student, Yalda Younes, in a letter. She found no better way than the dance language of her maestro to denounce the murder of journalist Samir Kassir in an attack. And the bombings provide her with the beat. Here begins and here ends any specific, explicit reference in the show 'El final de este estado de cosas'. Everything else is sensation, convulsion, obsession, fear, torment, pain, shaking... in a spiral which inevitably leads to death. With no prospects.
The context is indicated by the program booklet: the Apocalypse. And there's a lot of religious reflection to it. That's what is reflected by the music, lyrics, and some visible symbol or another. Christmas carols, saetas, prayers... are performed by high-tension flamenco artists such as Juan José Amador, Diego Carrasco, Fernando Terremoto , Bobote and Alfredo Lagos. Each of them with dazzling solo performances, but always serving the 'plot'. So much so that they even overcome the 'nerves' of marking the beat on a coffin ... or at least, trying to pretend so. And although the flamenco is offered in good, thought-out doses, other participations are also like that. The 'doom metal' group Orthodox, with its three members dressed as penitents, contributes a block of sound distortion of chilling darkness. Proyecto Lorca, a contemporary sax and percussion duo, contributes the subtle counterpoint ...
Israel Galván
(Foto Daniel Muñoz) |
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And in each sequence, the bearded prophet Israel Galván... who is one and many, who is everyone and no-one. He gathers in his body every kind of step, turn and move, and shoots them in radically atrocious cluster bombs. The sensual, the festive, the cutting, the abrupt, the flamenco, the butoh, the folk, the monstrous, the crack ... and the non-motion, which is his way of keeping quiet. Barefoot dance with a mask on sand. Dance parodying the canons. Dance changing sexes. Dance tied to a rociero drum. Dance-riding with horseshoes. Dance destroying a mobile platform. Dance dying inside a box of dead people ... desperately beating on the pine, like The Bride in 'Kill Bill'. And there are still those who ask that absurd question: "Did you like it?". And there are still those who want to impose interpretations. 'El final de este estado de cosas' is ugly, upsetting, painful and scary, but it's open ... and that's unbelievable.
Photo gallery, by Daniel Muñoz
Israel Galván, ‘El final de este estado
de cosas’ (Jerez 2008)
Click
the image to view photo gallery
BODEGA LOS APÓSTOLES
Antonio Malena · Ezequiel Benítez
Ezequiel Benítez
(Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
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A 'mini-series' of Jerez cante closes at the Singing Café in the home stretch of Festival de Jerez 2008. Ezequiel Benítez and Antonio Malena late night following Thursday, March 6th, and Antonio Reyes and Manuel Moneo will do so at midnight on the following night at Bodega de Los Apóstoles. Following the sketch which Ezequiel Benítez did of what will be his first solo album, Antonio Malena gave a genuine lesson in cantaor wisdom. The cantaor, who has genes from Jerez and Lebrija, traced an enlightening journey along the base triangle. He warmed up por cantiñas, the kind which are half sung, half spoken, at a slow pace, oxygenating the phases. He broke his powerful echo in the malagueñas de Chacón, was touching with the serranas dedicated to Chocolate... "I go alone to the bank of a river, I increase the current with my weeping". Opening his heart. With the two guitars doing a deaf Lebrija beat, he softly sang delightful bulerías. And then he reached his essence, the seguiriya. And he didn't settle for one, but rather he had to pour out all of his groaning in two parts. First, seguiriyas de Los Puertos and del Nitri. Second, seguiriyas de Tío José de Paula "with a Cuban change ... if I can". And how he was able to, although to manage he had to try his best. Following the catharsis, fresh air. And he embarked upon a succulent journey por bulerías which made stops in Lebrija, Utrera, Jerez... Luis de la Tota illustrated it with a little kick that made the glasses of wine fly through the air. That's the force projected by true cante, when it's done by an authentic cantaor.
Antonio Malena (Photo Daniel Muñoz)
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And tomorrow ...
· Miguel Poveda, 'Sin Frontera'. Teatro Villamarta (9 p.m.)
· Malucos Danza. Sala Compañía (7 p.m.)
· Antonio Reyes · Manuel Moneo. Bodega Los Apóstoles (midnight)
Miguel Poveda (Photo Daniel Muñoz)
'Sin frontera' is the show brought by Miguel Poveda on the next-to-the-last night. In the words of the cantaor, it's "that border which doesn't exist for Miguel Poveda in Jerez, but not from now; rather, since I got to Calle Nueva at the age of twenty to listen to Luis el Zambo". He affirms that in the show "very different forms coexist, from a very festive way from here to that of a Catalan non-gypsy from Badalona". And he adds that "the only aspiration is that I want to have a good time with this, with that and with the other artist; there's nothing to tell. And it's surprising that Jerez, which is apparently closed and conservative, also loves the non-gypsy from Badalona. It isn't sought, but it happens". And the thing is that Poveda believes that "Jerez is the place where flamenco is at its liveliest". He will be accompanied on stage by artists native to this land such as cantaor Luis el Zambo, guitarist Moraíto and bailaor Andrés Peña, besides guitarist Chicuelo. A couple of hours earlier at the Sala Compañía, the company Malucos Danza will perform its show 'Las sobras del festín'. And to close the day, locally branded cante at Bodega de Los Apóstoles by Manuel Moneo and Antonio Reyes.
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The Flamenco Festival Association meets in Jerez. Six out of the ten festivals which are already included in the recently created association (Bienal de Sevilla, Málaga en Flamenco, Festival de Jerez, Mont Marsan Festival, Festival del Cante de las Minas and Festival de Nîmes) have begun to lay down the foundation. According to its director, Domingo González, the association is conceived as "a forum for exchanging experiences", with aims like "increasing the possibilities of and developing the industry and profession generated beginning with flamenco art". The initiative arose in the past edition of the Jerez festival, in the setting of the technical days 'Los festivales flamencos en el mundo. Ritos, rotos y retos'.
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