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FESTIVAL DE JEREZ 2010. ANDRÉS MARÍN,
‘LA PASIÓN SEGÚN SE MIRE’
The concept in its roots
Silvia Calado. Jerez, March 3rd, 2010
‘La pasión
según se mire’. Baile, choreography:
Andrés Marín. Guest
artists: Lole Montoya, José de la Tomasa, Concha
Vargas. Cante: José Valencia, Pepe de Pura.
Guitars: Salvador Gutiérrez, David Marín.
Lute: Yorgos Karalis. Marimba: Daniel Medina. Percussion:
Antonio Coronel. Clarinet: Javier Delgado. Tuba: José
Miguel Sanz. Artistic directors: Andrés Marín,
Pilar Albarracín. Music directors: Andrés
Marín, Salvador Gutiérrez. 14th Festival
de Jerez. Teatro Villamarta. Jerez (Cádiz,
Spain), March 3rd, 2010. 9 p.m.
There was a lot of expectation. After
the radical ‘El cielo de tu boca’, bailaor
versus bells, what would be next? And the next thing
is a giant step in Andrés
Marín’s creative career. In ‘La
pasión según se mire’, the Sevillian
artist manages to make both his conceptual discourse
and esthetics more compact, going deeper than ever
into his roots and his freedom. And he’s done
so side by side with Pilar Albarracín, a contemporary
artist and a medium here.
The exhibition was simple, but complex:
to confront and connect the passions of artists characterized
by being unique. The first one to appear, like an
apparition, was Lole
Montoya, lifting her beautiful singing from two
shores up into the air. And the bailaor sketched it
out barefoot and with soft arms hitherto unknown.
The second experiment was self-lighting and self-darkening
with lights in each hand, to the sound of a marimba
which intertwined the avant-garde and Caracol style.
All by itself, Pepe de Pura’s cante linked some
styles with others until they came across peculiar
guitars and a peculiar seguiriya. Andrés Marín,
lit up in relief in the foreground, moved around in
the deep diagonal of his body, always connecting hearing
with movement, silence with sound, black and the void.
And the atmosphere, extraterrestrial.
Suddenly, a change in dimensions.
A tuba and a bailaora. The tangos, the well-roundedness,
the ethnic feminine voluptuousness of Concha
Vargas. Opposite the tangos, the geometry, the
austere male rectitude of Andrés Marín.
A clash of passion which reached the crowd at point-blank
range. The theater turned upside down. And a change
to cantiñas, shoes off, José
Valencia and Lebrija-style cadence. And silence
once again and back to Lole’s magic, huge and
as white as the flower in her song, which covered
mountains. A white curtain and birds, the clarinet
and the bailaor with clipped wings. And José
de la Tomasa’s voice up front telling the trilling,
and then a solo por soleá with the toque of
Salvador Gutiérrez, a solid squire here and
co-author of all the show’s music.
And in the following darkness, the
key number kicked off, the decisive one in which Andrés
Marín really risks it. The bailaor and the
cardboard dunce cap which marks the condemned and
fools, which is a phallus and a spire. His feet and
torso bare, two carts with lit candles and the march
‘Amargura’ done contemporary-style, a
step with great pomp, a step to the front, heresy
and tradition. As an epilogue, an anvil, the black
voice of Pies Plomo’s son, the hammers falling,
nails in his feet.
David
Lagos, ‘El espejo en que me miro’
Palacio de Villavicencio,
7 p.m.
There
are those who announce that they’re
going to present their album and there
are those who really present it. It
sounds like something impossible, but
David
Lagos managed to offer a faithful
reflection of ‘El espejo en que
me miro’ at the Palacio de Villavicencio,
without mikes or reverb, and only with
the accompaniment of Alfredo
Lagos on guitar and some discreet
clapping by Carlos Grilo and El Lúa
when necessary. You couldn’t tell
how, but it sounded like two guitars
and as if the cantaor’s voice
had split up to do the choruses. And
not only did he give authenticity to
that manner, but especially in the way
in which he processes, expresses and
delivers cante. The Jerez-born artist
has the gift of credibility, of making
you suffer with the pain of his seguiriya
and of cheering you up with the cantiñas,
of softening your sensitivity with his
tribute to El Sevillano, of rocking
you with ‘Tangos de Arena’,
of drenching your eyes with the malagueña
and of standing you up with the bulerías.
As he always says, the fact that most
of the lyrics are his –and also
many of the melodic patterns –
makes it easier for him to get them
across. But if something paves the way
for him, it’s the guitar of his
brother and musical accomplice Alfredo
Lagos, perfect in each climate, sophisticated
in every tessitura. The reaction of
the crowd that jam-packed the venue,
despite the time and rain, was spine-tingling;
such roars had never been felt here
before. Jerez, if it wants to, has a
really great cantaor. And if Jerez doesn’t
want him, then the world will have him.
In fact, it was at the emblematic Bimhuis
in Amsterdam where he premiered this
concert. The next stop will be Toulouse…
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Ana
Morales, ‘De sandalia a tacón’
Ana
Morales: baile, choreography.
Rubén Olmo: special collaboration
(baile, choreography). Antonio Campos,
Moi de Morón: cante. Jesús
Guerrero, Óscar Lago: guitar.
Israel Katumba: percussion. Jallal Chekara:
vocals, violin
Sala Compañía, midnight
It was
complicated for Ana
Morales. Midnight, a new name and
stunning premiere minutes earlier at
the Villamarta. However, her show dealt
successfully with everything –
except the box office - and ‘De
sandalia a tacón’ had us
glued to our seats from the first baile
to the last. The Catalan bailaora and
dancer, settled in Seville since joining
the Compañía Andaluza
de Danza, presented a show inspired
by the history of Andalusian dance,
from Roman Andalusia to Arab Al-Andalus,
stopping in the time of the ‘majas’
and leading up to the flamenco of the
singing cafés.
To
do so, she combined contemporary abstraction,
Spanish classicism and flamenco’s
rotundity, displaying herself as a multi-faceted
dancer-bailaora, with a solid base,
as plastic as she is expressive and
very confident on stage. Aerial like
puellae, precise in the pointillist
zapateado, sensual in ballet shoes and
a lady in a bata de cola. She was not
only able to perform and design her
bailes with personality, but also to
build them a framework and trace a “narrative”,
sensibly moving the musicians around
the stage and composing and weaving
together scenes, some of which were
especially interesting. She also knew
how to surround herself with ideal collaborators:
Jallal Chekara provided Moorish brazenness,
Antonio Campos broadened the vocals
and Rubén Olmos contributed the
perfect danced response, both as a pair
and solo. There are details of the stage
management to polish, cantes which seem
too long and bailes which seem too short,
but we’re before the first revelation
of this festival.
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And
tomorrow...
• Novísimos:
Karen Lugo • Saray García.
Sala Compañía, 7 p.m.
• Mie Matsumura & Antonio Canales.
Teatro Villamarta, 9 p.m.
• Mixtolobo: Juan Diego & Jorge
Gómez. Sala Paúl, midnight
The round-table
combined different accents. Japanese pianist
Mie Matsumura and Mexican bailaora Karen
Lugo personified that saying that flamenco
is universal. The former is the core of
the show which will be seen at the Teatro
Villamarta, ‘Serenata andaluza’,
and who will have Antonio
Canales as guest artist. The Japanese
performer says that for her “Spanish
music was always a mystery” and recognizes
that “I don’t know flamenco,
but I’m starting to understand its
codes little by little and I thus connect
with the work of Falla, Albéniz and
Granados”. Antonio Canales said that
in this show “her piano is the heart
which pumps the blood”. And with regards
to his contribution, he remarked that he
won’t do “the usual Spanish
classical, but rather flamenco Spanish classical”.
This day
will make room for another couple of new
bailaoras. In the evening at the Sala Compañía,
there’s Mexican bailaora Karen Lugo,
Javier Latorre’s disciple, and Jerez-born
Saray García. And then at midnight,
back to the alternative venue of the Sala
Paúl, with the new show by Juan
Diego. The Jerez-born guitarist unites
with electric and acoustic guitarist Jorge
Gómez to give birth to Mixtolobo,
a project stemming from his many years of
sharing while accompanying Remedios Amaya
as well as Tomasito and from a vision of
music as an “international language”.
The concert will be the presentation of
his album ‘Frontera’ which,
produced by Los Delinqüentes, will
be released in a few days.
There
was also time at noon for the official presentation
of the five volumes making up the now definitive
‘Historia del baile flamenco’
(‘History of Flamenco Dancing’)
by researcher José Luis Navarro.
The very complete work, which covers from
the origins to 2008, as presenter Fermín
Lobatón put it, is a reference work
which every student of the dance courses
at this festival should use as basic bibliography
complementary to the practical lessons.
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