FESTIVAL DE JEREZ 2010. DOSPORMEDIO & CÍA., ‘SONATA’

Two for all

Silvia Calado. Jerez, March 11th, 2010

‘Sonata’, Dospormedio & Cía. Rafael Estévez and Nani Paños: baile, directing, choreography, original idea. Rubén Olmo, Antonio Ruz: baile, choreography (guest artists). Rosana Romero, Álvaro Paños, Raquel Lamadrid, Eduardo Leal, Carmen Manzanera, Andoitz Ruibal, Ana Agraz, Sergio Bernal: dancers. Piano: Edith Peña. Music: Padre Antonio Soler. Lighting design: Antonio Valiente, Dospormedio. 14th Festival de Jerez. Teatro Villamarta. Jerez (Cádiz, Spain), March 11th, 2010. 9 p.m.

Dospormedio & Compañía (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

Rafael Estévez & Rubén Olmo (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

‘Sonata’ is the first show which makes both parts materialize of Festival de Jerez’s slogan which, although we forget about it many days, is “flamenco dancing and Spanish dance”. And it goes beyond that. Dospormedio & Cía, directed by Rafael Estévez and Nani Paños, manages to integrate both dance worlds of shared genetics, and moreover, to lay it out with a contemporary, emotional, universal vision. The most surprising thing is that they do so just to the sound of the prodigious piano of concert performer Edith Peña playing, one after another for over an hour and a half, twenty-five sonatas by Padre Antonio Soler, that’s to say, composed in the 18th century.

In that musical legacy, in which the piece danced by Antonio before Edgar Neville’s camera is hardly known in the world of Spanish dance, they’ve delved quite deeply. And they pull out rhythms which we understand today as flamenco, such as the soleá por bulerías, tangos, tanguillos… and they choreograph and dance them as such… from their particular vision. But the find goes beyond the mathematics that reach your ear. What Dospormedio reveals is an enveloping world of emotions to interpret the way a work by Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham or the Cullberg Ballet is interpreted. And over the past two weeks that’s scarcely occurred on a couple of occasions, that treatment of the audience as adult and free.

Dospormedio & Compañía (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

It wouldn’t be possible without choreographers of astronomical creativity, or without top-level dancers. They all are. And therefore each one has his place within the whole of the show, the directors making sure that each stands out with the best of himself. At the same time, each one knows how to take up his place when they’re a group. And the truth is that they make it really hard for spectators… or really easy, since whatever it focuses on, it gets it right. Although each detail could be commented on, upon remembering the show hours later, passages stand out like the introduction in silence, the bolero school pas de deux by Nani Paños and Rubén Olmo, the tremendous patá por tangos by Rafael Estévez, the solemn trio of priests, the impressive oil painting of the group on the wall… and the sophisticated “little spin” by Olmo and the hyper-virtuous footwork score by Álvaro Paños and the classical exquisiteness of Sergio Bernal and the expressionist ironies of Antonio Ruz and the folk multi-piece paying tribute to Juanjo Linares and the piano-castanet face-off by Eduardo Leal and the elegant sensuality of each of the four versatile dancers… and the delicate epilogue in which it’s stressed that if they’re dancers, it’s because they listen to the music.

La Sallago, ‘Vivencias’ Sala Compañía. 5 p.m. La Sallago (Photo Festival de Jerez/ Javier Fernández) Nonagenarian cantaora Encarnación Marín ‘La Sallago’ sang and told her ‘Vivencias’ (‘Experiences’) at the Sala Compañía, interviewed by journalist Alberto García Reyes (Photo Festival de Jerez/ Javier Fernández)

Rancapino & Antonio Reyes Bodega de Los Apóstoles, midnight Rancapino (Photo Festival de Jerez/ Javier Fernández) Chiclana-born cantaores Rancapino and Antonio Reyes shared La Bodega de Los Apóstoles at midnight, extolling classical Cádiz-style cante (Photo Festival de Jerez/ Javier Fernández)