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FESTIVAL DE JEREZ 2008. ISABEL BAYÓN,
‘LA PUERTA ABIERTA’
How to applaud inwards
Silvia Calado. Jerez, February 25th, 2008
‘La puerta abierta’.
Baile, choreography: Isabel Bayón.
With the special collaboration of Miguel Poveda. Guitar,
music: Jesús Torres. Percussion: Antonio Coronel.
Clapping: Carlos Grilo, El Lúa. Stage directing:
Pepa Gamboa. Stage design: Antonio Marín. Lighting:
Juan Manuel Guerra. 12th Festival de Jerez. Teatro Villamarta.
Jerez (Cádiz, Spain), February 25th, 2008. 9 p.m.
Isabel Bayón (Photo
Daniel Muñoz)
The apparently simple is undoubtedly
the most complex. That’s what you learn from ‘La
puerta abierta’ by Isabel
Bayón. The show, awarded as the best one at
Seville’s Bienal de Flamenco 2006, does without
anything superfluous, anything ornamental, anything dispensable
… to remain with the essence, the soul, the necessary.
There’s no place here for applause, nor for the
easy nor hardly for the difficult. And the thing is that
it offers the audience the unusual experience of living
their emotions behind closed doors.
Isabel Bayón
(Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
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In ‘La puerta abierta’, the
Sevillian bailaora never comes out straightforwardly.
But she isn’t always up front. The space is split
up with a large room at the back with doors and openings,
in which her intimacy is exposed, where she changes clothes
and states. And the thing is that she doesn’t separate
the interior from the exterior here; rather, she mixes
them … As it happens in the alegrías, which
when they’re at their liveliest, grief which dwells
within sharply comes to visit them, the torturing martinete.
But the interior isn’t always so cruel. It also
has the lightness of the ‘Goldberg Variations’,
which the bailaora translates into free movement. Or it
can have the sweetness of the milonga or the pasodoble,
styles in which a way of dancing comes out sparkling which
is somewhat more than charming. In both contexts, she
champions the feminine, a way which is very Sevillian,
very usual, very attentive to details, to the little things.
So much is said with so very little …
So no more is needed than just enough
company. And as colleagues here, she has the indisputable
cantaor Miguel
Poveda, with whom she forms one of the most beautiful
pairs that flamenco has ever enjoyed; guitarist Jesús
Torres, one of the indispensable names in toque for
dancing and who in this show offers an advance on two
occasions of what is going to be his solo work beginning
with the presentation of ‘Viento
del Norte’ tomorrow at Bodega de Los Apóstoles.
Just the rhythm is needed, the land… and they’re
provided with comparable elegance by Antonio Coronel on
percussions, and Carlos Grilo and El Lúa on clapping.
Why more? Ah, yes. La
Piriñaca and Agujetas
still need to be mentioned, who come from somewhere in
time to remind us of the existential side of cante. And
by the way, the treatment which is done of both recordings
from the musical and dance viewpoint is worthy of mention,
for how work is done in times which are always left out.
That also happens to the importance of the theatrical
matter, of knowing how to be and perform on the sacred
stage … except when professionals like Pepa Gamboa
get down to work.
Photo gallery, by Daniel Muñoz
Isabel Bayón, ‘La puerta abierta’ (Jerez
2008)
Click
the image to view photo gallery
Niño Seve
• Miguel
Lavi. Palacio de Villavicencio
Natural-style flamenco. The
evenings at Palacio de Villavicencio offer
the option of listening to cante and toque
just the way they sound, without technology
coming between the artist and the spectator.
That experience, which isn’t easy, was
undertaken by guitarist Niño Seve and
cantaor Miguel Lavi. It was hard for the Córdoba-born
tocaor to warm up the venue. When he managed
to, he did so by displaying his prizewinning
virtues in technique, but he was missing his
own discourse... or he didn’t have a
chance to exhibit it. The Jerez-born cantaor,
however, came in for the kill. A prologue
standing up with unaccompanied cantes, heartrending,
without holding back. Coming in on toque was
Diego
del Morao, a young guitarist who knows
how to feed whoever he accompanies... and
in passing, to shine in his own right. Thus
well provided for, the cantaor reeled off
a recital which dwelled upon styles with the
mark of the land. Old echo, attitude, courage
and an extraordinary sense of rhythm in uttering
the phases endorsed this mature bud of cante
from here … and from outside here.
Miguel Lavi (Photo
Daniel Muñoz)
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And tomorrow ...
• Flamenco World Music: Jesús
Torres, Encarna Anillo & David Lagos.
Bodega de los Apóstoles (9 p.m.)
• Manuela Ríos, ‘De tabla’.
Sala Compañía (midnight)
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Encarna
Anillo, David Lagos and Jesús
Torres (Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
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In these times of such a
promoted debacle, it is surprising that Festival
de Jerez 2008 should welcome the birth of
a new record company. And on top of it, specializing
in flamenco. The project comes from Flamenco-world.com,
since as one of its founding partners, Daniel
Muñoz, explained at Bodega de San Ginés,
“we don’t want to just watch flamenco
from the sidelines, but to help things happen”.
He added that creating a label now, for which
a new team has been formed with new partners
and whose headquarters has been established
in Almería, “might seem somewhat
strange in these times of crisis, but we understand
that there’s a public for each kind
of music and artists need to have an infrastructure
to see their work projected”. The first
ones premiering the company are Encarna
Anillo with ‘Barcas de plata’
and Jesús
Torres with ‘Viento del Norte’,
to be followed by David
Lagos with ‘El espejo en que me
miro’ next fall. The cantaora couldn’t
hide the thrill she feels when grasping her
first solo album, following a professional
career of two decades. The guitarist recognized
that bringing out a record nowadays “is
kamikaze but in my case, the music is born
live and gets lost in the air and the only
way to be able to enjoy it again is in a physical
medium”. What he captures “springs
from an inner need and comes from my way of
understanding flamenco and music”. And
the Jerez-born artist of the threesome let
on that his will be “a humble, simple
album; it could easily be a live one”.
Maestros such as “Chacón, Camarón,
Diego Carrasco, Chano Lobato, El Sevillano...
will inspire each song”; thus, the title.
The three of them star in the presentation
concert of Flamenco
World Music at Bodega de Los Apóstoles.
The event, since the Villamarta closes, will
be at 9 p.m. When the triple recital ends,
the focus of attention will move on at midnight
to the Sala Compañía, where
bailaora Manuela Ríos will premiere
‘De tablas’, a show dedicated
to guitarist Rafael Rodríguez ‘El
Cabeza’, “for the generosity of
his art with my baile”.
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Further information:
Festival
de Jerez 2008. Index of reviews, photos, videos
All
about Festival de Jerez 2008: reviews, photos,
videos, program, courses, news, store...
Bienal
de Sevilla 2006. Isabel Bayón, ‘La
puerta abierta’. Review, photos, video
The
record company Flamenco World Music premieres
with cantaora Encarna Anillo and guitarist
Jesús Torres
Visit the international flamenco festival
agenda
www.flamencofestival.info
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