FESTIVAL DE JEREZ 2011. SHOJI KOJIMA, 'LA
CELESTINA'
An artist’s talon
Silvia Calado. Jerez, February 27th, 2011
'La Celestina'. Shoji Kojima:
original idea, Celestina. Javier Latorre: direction, choreography.
Chicuelo: musical direction. Cristian Lozano: Calisto. Esmeralda
Manzanas: Melibea. Ángel Sánchez: Sempronio.
Pablo Fraile: Pármeno. Ayumi Yanagiya: Elicia. Kanako
Maeda: Areúsa. Konomi Tsumori: Lucrecia. Hugo López:
Centurio. Dance crew: Shoji Kojima Ballet Flamenco. Londro,
Jesús Méndez, Mónica Navarro: cante.
Chicuelo, Salva de María: guitars. Olvido Lanza:
violin. Lito Iglesias: cello. Pedro Navarro: percusion.
Chiaki Horikoshi: scenography. Hiroo Oshima: lighting. 15th
Festival de Jerez. Teatro Villamarta. Jerez (Cádiz,
Spain), February 27th, 2011. 9:00 pm
Shoji
Kojima usually uses a simile to explain why he has a
passion for flamenco. He says it’s like a bird of
prey’s talon, a talon which catches you. What he has
never mentioned is that he also has his own raptor’s
talon, a talon which seized the audience at Festival de
Jerez 2011, a forum which finally opened up for this veteran
artist who is flamenco’s devoted ambassador in Japan.
And for this “début” in Jerez -but not
in Spain, since he has performed on other occasions on stages
here, among them, the Palau de la Música in Barcelona
- he chose a high-quality show, exquisite in its immense
details, based on 'La Celestina' by Fernando de Rojas.
Since his culture is broad, in this adaptation,
he coherently forges the coexistence of three artists who
he reveres: Pablo Picasso, whose etchings on tragicomedy
he took for the stage design; Pablo Neruda, some of whose
verses he turns into cantes; and Pau Casals, whose emblematic
performances of Bach for cello he chooses as well as 'Cant
dels Ocells'. And he does so while sharing the creative
crew with Javier Latorre, who acts as director and choreographer,
and with Chicuelo
as music director. The triumvirate manages to put together
a high-level show in every aspect, from the narration to
the performance, in which the main character stands out
mightily.
Shoji Kojima is an Expressionist ‘Celestina’
(procuress). The role fits the Japanese bailaor like a glove
and, although he dances quite a bit, at the age of seventy
plus, he really lays it on in the transmission of the go-between’s
nuances: avarice, gruesomeness, deceit, witchcraft... both
in drama and dancing. At moments like the taranto, he is
deeply moving due to how synthetic and tragic his movement
is. He shares the foreground with dancers Cristian Lozano
and Esmeralda Manzanas, Calisto and Melibea, with elegant,
meticulous dancing between flamenco and Spanish dance. The
rest of the characters are at the same level, backed by
the Japanese dance corps, disciplined in performance and
hard-working in the search for that sensual strength and
that expressive curve which is more cultural than formal.
The lighting, stage design and wardrobe
only contribute to the contents and flow of the show, just
like the music. There are lyrics which the cantaores take
great pains to make heard, since they support the script
in both the nature of the styles and the extra edge their
performance gives them. And the same thing happens with
the musical passages conceived climatically and emotionally
by Chicuelo, a musician who last night was able to honorably
recover from adverse personal circumstances aware of how
important this show was to Shoji Kojima... and also to Festival
de Jerez.
Festival
de Jerez 2011. Shoji Kojima, 'La
Celestina'
Photo gallery, by Daniel Muñoz
Click
the image to enlarge
Jesús
Fernández, 'Ataduras'
Sala Compañía,
midnight
Jesús
Fernández faced up to his internal
conflicts in his début at Festival
de Jerez. The voice in off was the voice of
his fears, anxieties, weaknesses. But the
bailaor answered it louder with his own, with
his baile. Using a traditional register and
vintage styles, he moved his figure energetically,
turned around swiftly and tapped out clean
footwork, emphasizing details, twisting his
arms. And all of it in the setting of a simple,
carefully-presented show in which he was accompanied
by Galli and Rosendo on cante, Jesús
Guerrero on toque, and Sonia Poveda and Lidia
Valle on clapping and the connecting baile.
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And
tomorrow...
• Miguel
Ortega. Palacio de Villavicencio, 7:00 pm
• Javier Barón, 'Vaivenes'. Teatro
Villamarta, 9:00 pm
Tomorrow
at the Teatro Villamarta, Javier
Barón displays his latest show
'Vaivenes', which he premiered at Bienal de
Sevilla 2010. In this eighth production which
the company brings to Jerez, he relies on
artists such as bailaora Carmelilla Montoya,
guitarist Javier Patino, Raúl Rodríguez
on Cuban tres and David Palomar and José
Valencia on cante. But the day will begin
two hours earlier at the Palacio de Villavicencio,
where Miguel
Ortega will sing in an acoustic recital
in which, accompanied by guitarist Manuel
Herrera, he will perform pieces off his début
album 'Una mirada atrás'. |
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