SPECIAL FEATURE. BACKSTAGE WITH… MANUEL LIÑÁN
IN ‘TAURO’
Zambras, strings, sweatshirts
Silvia Calado. Madrid, January 2010
Photo Gallery. Manuel Liñan:
‘Tauro’, rehearsals
Creation goes on. At least, as far as flamenco
dancing is concerned. And to check it out, you don’t
have to go to the big flamenco festivals. On a given Saturday,
right in the middle of the Madrilenian neighborhood of Vallecas,
Manuel Liñán goes and premieres ‘Tauro’.
It isn’t easy to obtain financing nowadays, nor to
catch the attention of program organizers, but the Granada-born
bailaor and choreographer has had access to public aid,
just enough to be able to put together a new show with his
own name and premiere it on stage at a theater. For the
time being, you can’t ask for more. Tonight, the aim
is to get it started, enjoy it (insofar as a premiere can
be enjoyed), have the crowd enjoy themselves and record
it so that it reaches the tables of those who are hiring.
But that will come later. Scarcely a few
hours before the premiere, the dress rehearsal highlights
that everything fits together, that the months of prior
work have now borne their fruit. Gloria Montesinos, the
lighting technician, works at placing the marks of adhesive
tape, while Manuel Liñán secures his solo
with castanets around himself that he has designed based
on soleares de Arca. That is precisely the end of the show,
when everyone has left after the slightly folk and slightly
nostalgic merrymaking of the zambra (Andalusian gypsy dance).
Advised by Curro Albaicín and by Juan Pinilla, Liñán
wants “to give the ritual of the zambra a different
sense, so we’ve taken that music and, more than updating
it, what we’ve done is color it”. The idea was
to imagine and capture “how to dance today”
that tradition which means so much to the Granada-born…
bailaor.
That double meaning between tradition
and renovation can be found throughout the choreography
work of the show which, like a musical “variety”
(that goes from the temporera de Montefrío to Lorcan
sonnets por abandolaos, with the taranto and the soleá
por bulerías in between), consists of different baile
pieces designed as solos, duos, trios and quartets for Liñán
himself and for Cristian Martín, Guadalupe Torres
and Vanesa Coloma. “Above all, I wanted to bring out
each bailaor’s profile, not to miss any of his or
her personality, but rather to highlight it”, the
choreographer points out. And you can see that especially
in the case of Cristian Martín, “who contributes
different more classical training; you can see Spanish dance
in him”. He therefore plays an outstanding role in
a very special piece; the granaína. It is performed
on toque by Luis Mariano, the show’s music director,
and he stages the dance by getting plastically tangled up
in six elastic bands... in six guitar strings.
And a nice effect is caused in the dress
rehearsal by the fact that the artists are dressed half
in rehearsal clothes, half in stage wardrobe. Sometimes
the crowd should see the people who are behind the artists,
the contrast between the glamour on stage and the sweat
backstage. Sweatshirts and T-shirts are mixed with trousers
and shirts designed by Yaiza Pinillos. And the thing is
that in the back, the woman ironing clothes is still hard
at work. So also wearing jeans are the cantaores, who in
this show are Antonio Campos, Sandra Carrasco and Gema Caballero,
as well as guitarist Antonia Jiménez, also author
of part of the original music. Kike Cabañas, another
sound engineering expert of flamenco dancing, receives the
musicians’ instructions from the mixing desk. It’s
time to put on the finishing touches. “Don’t
bring the mike up too close and crowd it; I’ll put
up the volume for you”, he tells the cantaora. And
even in those circumstances, beautiful instants of voice
surface which anticipate what the audience will see within
a few hours at this Centro Cultural Paco Rabal, situated
between workers’ housing and the Assembly of Madrid.
Cristian Martín
(Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
|
The facilities are marvelous, by the way, but they have
nothing to do with the Auditorio Nacional where at the same
time Gerardo Núñez will be inaugurating the
Andalucía Flamenca Series. But this stage must seem
like the auditorium itself to Manuel Liñán…
if he compares it to the alternative venues where he has
presented previous shows of his. On these digital pages
a few years ago, we related the premiere of one of his first
solo shows, ‘1980’, at the Sala Pradillo in
Madrid, within the La Otra Mirada del Flamenco 2006 Series.
Since then, Manuel Liñán’s résumé
has really swollen up. Besides dancing solo and in collaboration
with Marcos Flores and Olga Pericet at the main festivals
of the flamenco circuit, he has authored choreographies
as talked-about as the caracoles with which Merche Esmeralda,
Belén Maya and Rocío Molina closed the show
‘Mujeres’, directed by Mario Maya. And he displays
both of his facets, as a choreographer and a performer,
in his new show ‘Tauro’… or at least,
so it seems in the dress rehearsal. We hope to check it
out soon.
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