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FESTIVAL DE JEREZ 2009. EVA YERBABUENA, ‘LLUVIA’
Transcendent bailaora
Silvia Calado. Jerez, February 27th, 2009
‘Lluvia’. Eva Yerbabuena: baile, choreography, original idea. Mercedes de Córdoba, Irene Lozano, Eduardo Guerrero, Fernando Jiménez: baile. Enrique el Extremeño, Pepe de Pura, Jeromo Segura: cante. Paco Jarana, Manuel de Luz: guitar. Manuel Muñoz ‘El Pájaro’, Raúl Domínguez: percussion. 13th Festival de Jerez. Teatro Villamarta. Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz, Spain), February 27th, 2009. 9 p.m.
Eva Yerbabuena (Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
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Rain. Weeping. Loneliness. Coldness. Melancholy. Not being able to communicate. A soundless lament. Opening the trunk and letting your mind wander. A final embrace and back to the beginning. Eva Yerbabuena is on a street with no name, amidst anonymous people, outdoors … but further inside than ever. All those feelings were always latent, but now they are inspiration, motive and purpose. Around all of those feelings, the Granada-born bailaora and choreographer has composed another risky show, which comes after that sort of fallow and recapitulation which was ‘Santo y seña’.
Taking a poem as the starting point, she tinges the whole of the show with absolute lyricism. “Silence hurts when it’s pure”. Music, stage design and lighting achieve indissoluble unity, creating the perfect atmosphere and climate for the dance script. But perhaps so gauged and so neat, that it nearly seemed to hinder the sentimental script from coming through.
Although what did come through was Eva Yerbabuena’s genius as a bailaora. She always has something more to pull out of herself. It’s so much here that while still being herself, she manages to be someone else. And it isn’t just that she reinvented herself por soleá… Which is no small feat. The blackness of the bata de cola, background and echoes made it look as if only her hands were dancing and her face, concentrated in so little, all of its expressive, esthetic and emotional power. And she was the same woman who at the beginning of the show made a reference to contemporaneity, letting her body droop on the floor to the sound of the beautiful tremolo by Paco Jarana. The same one who tested the limits of her foreshortening in the taranta. The same one who took a stab at funniness in tanguillos with wide hips. The same one who designed rhythmic loops for a four-way dance. The same one who arched her waist and rolled her eyes with the grief-stricken ‘Compromiso’ by Pepe de Pura and let herself be wounded by the dramatic ‘Se nos rompió el amor’ by the surprise guest, cantaor Miguel Poveda. And the same woman who, after all of that, came out with an inattentive regard and walked barefoot through the audience amidst immense, moved applause.
Moraíto, ‘Homenaje a La Paquera’
Bodega de Los Apóstoles, midnight
Moraíto and Jesús Méndez
(Photo
Daniel Muñoz) |
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If the historic Bodega de Los Apóstoles had to choose a sound of its own, it would surely be that of Moraíto’s guitar. Although the columns of the sacred venue didn’t allow the scene to be seen, you could hear the depth of that guitar as if it oozed from the very casks themselves. And to top it all off, he brought with him the memory ofLa Paquera de Jerez, who he dedicated a recital to which could have filled the place two or three nights. The tense playing, the direct communication, the way of singing and telling, the knowing how to make the ancient modern, the overwhelming personality, the fluent emotion without beating around the bush, the tribute to himself. The seguiriya, soleá and bulería are his native land. AndJesús Méndezgoes and sits down beside him and opens that inherited echo of his to premiere the song ‘La Paquera’. One trills. The other alianda. Morao completes the band with bass, violin, percussions and clapping to the time of the now indispensable tanguillos. All that’s left is to finish things off with the “deluxe guest star”, a work-laden Miguel Poveda who brought from his ‘Sin frontera’ the cuplé of “the copla has no wall”. Of course, dedicated to her.
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'Viva Jerez!' on DVD
The round-table at La Bodega de San Ginés was also held on the inaugural day of Festival de Jerez 2009, the right setting for the presentation of the DVD of the show ‘¡Viva Jerez!’, the festival’s first own production. Francisco López, director of the show and of the festival until the past edition, remarked that it is an audiovisual product “intended for spectators; and I hope they find a way to approach Jerez flamenco”. In the name of the artists, veteran Angelita Gómez pointed out that on the DVD “the singing, playing and dancing are done with heart, and I hope that those who watch it enjoy it as much as we have”. Moreover, she emphasized that “it has two sides; one for Europe and the other for the rest of the world”. Daniel Muñoz, representing Flamenco World Music, the company which has published and distributed it, added that “it’s a necessary product because it covers the lack of flamenco’s audiovisual documentation; there are no registers at the public’s disposal … and the way is paved by ‘¡Viva Jerez!’”. The DVD is now on sale at the store of the Teatro Villamarta during the festival and at Flamenco-world.com. Beginning on March 15th, it will be distributed throughout Spain.
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And tomorrow…
· Teatro Villamarta (9 p.m.). Juan Diego, Ángel Muñoz & Adela Campallo, ‘Inspiración’
· Sala Compañía (midnight). María José Franco, ‘Bailando para mí’
Juan Diego with Enrique Rodríguez, Adela Campallo and Ángel Muñoz
(Photo
Daniel Muñoz) |
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‘Inspiración’ inverts the relationship between baile and music. The show, the second premiere at this thirteenth Festival de Jerez, is based on music by Jerez-born guitarist Juan Diego. And as he himself affirms, “we’ve turned things around; here, the music is the common thread and the bailaores provide the plastic art”. To which he added that “more than tying them down to a script, I encourage them to express themselves, I give them a blank canvas for them to paint on as they wish”.Ángel Muñoz, who will dance rumba and alegrías solo, elaborated that he has “tried for the baile not to sound hard nor to bother the work of art which he has composed”. And he assures that his role has been “to get so involved in the music that you end up being another instrument for the group”. Adela Campallo, whose solo baile is the soleá, touched upon the spaces which the show leaves open to the artists’ inspiration: “We can be ourselves and that’s the only way the three so different personalities we are have managed to be mixed”. Most of the repertoire will be part of Juan Diego’s second solo album, which will be released in the months to come. The seguiriya ‘Musgo’ and the bulería ‘Malika’ stand out, both of which are danced in a duo in ‘Inspiración’. The midnight show on this second day of the festival will be ‘Bailando para mí’ by María José Franco at the Sala Compañía. The Cádiz-born bailaora let on that “each moment and each baile display a personal evolution; to do so, I’ve sought the essence of what I wanted to express in each of them”. The show, in which she has Juan Ogalla as guest bailaor, aims “for the guitarists who have composed the music – Juan Manuel Moneo and Pedro Pimentel – and I to enjoy ourselves”.
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