 |
|
|
|
FESTIVAL DE JEREZ 2010. FERNANDO ROMERO, ‘HISTORIA
DE UN SOLDADO’
The bailaor at the front
Silvia Calado. Jerez, March 10th, 2010
‘Historia de un soldado’
(‘The Soldier’s Tale’). Soldier:
Fernando Romero. Devil: Manolo Marín
(guest artist). Narrators: Juan José Amador,
Miguel Ortega (cante). Princess: Isabel Bayón
(special collaboration). Artistic project and choreography,
mood music: Fernando Romero. Music: Igor Stravinsky
(‘The Soldier’s Tale’ suite). 14th
Festival de Jerez. Teatro Villamarta. Jerez (Cádiz,
Spain), March 10th, 2010. 9 p.m.
The challenge was complicated. Fernando
Romero carried out his first solo performance at the
Teatro Villamarta with a flamenco musical drama show,
a very particular version of ‘The Soldier’s
Tale’; Ramuz’s story and Stravinsky’s
suite. The Sevillian bailaor and choreographer, assistant
director of the Ballet Nacional de España,
stars in the narration, playing the role of the soldier
who, coming home, sells his soul to the Devil. And
instead of the violin of the original work, it’s
represented here by a flamenco guitar, an element
which provides interesting illustrations in the hands
of the bailaor.
Beside him and nearly stealing the
spotlight is Manolo
Marín, the prestigious Sevillian maestro
who has molded so many bailaores and continues to
do so. Just like Manolo Soler did in Israel Galván’s
‘Los zapatos rojos’, he’s a Devil
dressed in red who plays with the compás, with
the flamenco essence of the Sevillian courtyard and
with the interpretation. The same. He makes the plot
understood, makes the crowd laugh and provides touches
of genuine art along the way. But the excess of spoken
words and the twisted multi-description of the character
end up marring him. The ones who are really surprising
once again for their unlimited versatility –
and they’d already been so two nights earlier
together with Belén Maya – are the two
cantaores who split the narrator. Juan
José Amador and Miguel
Ortega might just as easily sing straight out
– most of the time, lyrics supporting the script
-, as self-accompany the toque, as do some choreographed
steps, as perform as silent comedians. Both are incredible
artists.
The appearance by Isabel Bayón
in the role of the princess was detailed and nearly
ornamental, delicate, sensual and nice, a succinct
ray of light. And Fernando Romero danced with that
quality of his, always precise, always impeccable,
but always different. Eclectic in the disciplines
to call on, he had moments of age-old flamenco, steps
and classical movements, free nearly expressionist
expressions, and even a reference to tap dancing with
a derby hat and cane. He thus placed spectators in
the era when the work was composed, in the First World
War. But the main contextualizing tool was the archive
pictures projected on the three white-cloth walls
which fenced and split up the scene into different
planes. The display of technical means and props in
this production is overwhelming; more so in these
times of inevitable minimalism.
However, despite everything aforementioned,
the show doesn’t quite work. There are flaws
in the drama, but perhaps the most shocking thing
is the use of the music. The score by the brilliant
Stravinsky is beyond criticism, but it is criticizable
how Romero surrounds it and crushes it through an
inaudible electronic ambience of his own creation.
The problem isn’t that it’s electronic
music, but that it isn’t good electronic music.
Since it’s a detail, it appears as ambience,
but it lasts and weighs as much or more than the cante
or the recorded suite itself. And in the end, it’s
incomprehensible that if it has the best soldier,
the best devil, the best cantaores, the most beautiful
princess, the courage to take on risks and all the
technical means, it doesn’t have the best creator
of electronic music, for there are some in this country.
Luis
el Zambo
Palacio de Villavicencio.
7 p.m.
Luis el
Zambo (Foto Festival de Jerez/
Javier Fernández) |
Luis
el Zambo opened the jar of classical
cante essences. With the naturalness
and composure which his younger colleagues
lacked a few evenings earlier, the cantaor
from Cantarería Street deciphered
the secrets of cante especially from
Jerez, but also that of other lands.
He opened the evening with his trademark,
the bulería por soleá,
simple and direct. And having previously
gone por levante, por la Corte and por
Chacón, he warmed up his instrument
to face the soleá. He already
had the jondo gates open, although he’d
end up tuning up his voice with a daring
malagueña. Fernando Moreno, at
his side, came in with his toque further
and further back in time. He left the
silence between cantes for the birds
in the Alcázar garden to sing.
And then came the seguiriya, with that
something terrible and existential this
cante involves when cantaores cast it
out like that. Having overcome the recital’s
greatest challenge, he then relaxed
por fandangos, one after another, like
a troubadour with a bitter throat and
broad chest. He criticized those who
criticize, spoke of death and his mother,
summarized his biography and proclaimed
himself to be the one who sings most
gypsy. The finish, of course, was a
varied string por bulerías…
as if illustrating the presentation
of the book ‘Por
bulerías. 100 años de
compás flamenco’ which
I’d done a while earlier at Hojas
de Bohemia Bookshop. I seem to recall
that the queen in the picture even bowed
to him. (Photo Festival de Jerez/
Javier Fernández) |
|
Adrián
Sánchez, ‘Por los cuatro
costaos’
Sala Compañía,
midnight
Adrián
Sánchez (Photo Festival
de Jerez/ Javier Fernández) |
At midnight
at the Sala Compañía,
bailaor Adrián Sánchez
presented the show ‘Por los cuatro
costaos’, inspired by flamenco
with Granada idiosyncrasy (Photo
Festival de Jerez/ Javier Fernández) |
|
And
tomorrow...
• La
Sallago, ‘Vivencias’. Sala Compañía.,
5 p.m.
• Dospormedio & Cía, ‘Sonata’.
Teatro Villamarta, 9 p.m.
• Rancapino & Antonio Reyes. Bodega
Los Apóstoles, midnight
That this
is a “Spanish dance” festival
is going to be made clear tomorrow by Dospormedio
& Cía. Two years after winning
the Revelation Prize at Festival de Jerez
with their show ‘Flamenco XXI’,
Rafael
Estévez and Nani
Paños return with ‘Sonata’.
And they define this show as “a choreographic
fantasy inspired by the music of Padre Antonio
Soler in which different disciplines of
Spanish dances coexist: folklore, classical,
neoclassical, Spanish dance, bolero school,
flamenco and contemporary”. With concert
performer Edith Peña playing the
twenty-five sonatas live on the piano, thirteen
dancers dance who moreover contribute “the
percussion of their bodies and also their
silences”. And among them you can
find the two guest artists and choreographers,
Antonio Ruz and Rubén Olmo. Following
the press conference, the four of them tackled
the current situation and problems of Spanish
dance in an interesting round-table. It
was deserving of a separate article, but
in short, they sent out a message of concern
about the way that the institutions, both
in conservatories and in public companies,
are neglecting the Spanish dance heritage.
Dospormedio’s
show will be framed by traditional and nearly
historic cante. In the afternoon at the
Sala Compañía, Sanlúcar-born
cantaora La
Sallago will share her now nonagenarian
‘Vivencias’ (‘Experiences’)
with those attending. And at midnight, Rancapino
will tell his while singing. He already
told some of them at the round-table, above
all, memories of Camarón and the
mythical Venta de Vargas. The cantaor, who
shares the bill with the young Antonio Reyes,
took advantage of the act to clamor for
“the naturalness and truth of pure
flamenco not to be lost”. And he sent
out a message to young cantaores: “They
should keep on listening to and studying
the classical cantaores, for that quality
not to be lost; it’s very unpleasant
for them to distort it”.
|
|
|
|
|
|
More
information, audio, orders
