WORLD FLAMENCO FESTIVAL IN MARBELLA

Incompatibilities between olé and eagles

Silvia Calado Olivo. Marbella (Málaga), January 2003
Traslation: Joseph Kopec

"Today is a very special day". With this sentence Antonio Canales started the presentation of each of the five nights of the World Flamenco Festival, a series organized by the public corporation Andalusian Tourism, Seville's Bienal de Flamenco and the hotel association Selected Hotels from December 27th to 31st, 2002 at Marbella's Hotel Don Miguel. An a posteriori analysis of this festival provides food for thought about the suitability of using flamenco as a tourist attraction for Andalusia... or how to make such a mixture fitting. A matter of context.

	Antonio Canales with the young giraldillos (Foto: Daniel Muñoz)

The thousand or so people staying at the hotel - most of them participants in the 2nd Selected Hotels Golf Festival - shaped the potential crowd of a bill gathering the artists awarded the new Giraldillo Prizes (that is, Gerardo Núñez, Dorantes, Arcángel and Manuela Carrasco) by the group of critics appointed by the Bienal, as well as the winners of the Young Performers Contest (now called the Young Giraldillos). But not just them. The series is none other than the Costa del Sol Flamenco Festival (which held its first edition in 2001) in other hands. And the takeover had its price: that the local group Solera de Jerez - usually in charge of livening up the Marbella hotel and the creator of that first edition which brought to the heart of the Málaga coast, among others, José Mercé and Aurora Vargas - should open the festival. The positive side is that it offered a comparative reference that proved right the noteworthy skeptics at the resort: an extremely high percentage of those one thousand people do not distinguish between first and second row... nor should they have to. They have enough to do already with perfecting their swing at the paradisiacal facilities of Atalaya Golf & Country Club.

The fact is that, although the response to the second-rate inaugural show was flat, Jacaranda Hall's crowd was constantly clearing out throughout Dorantes' piano recital. And that is just one example. The shows by Gerardo Núñez Trío at the piano bar around midnight were treated with even greater contempt. Those who showed up at the I Love the Golf Café neither stopped chatting nor drinking up when the show started. Who could make them understand the difference between the staff keyboard player and one of the foremost musicians in Spain's musical panorama, besides the top figure in flamenco guitar?

It was not the setting. Flamenco went through that trance long ago. Take a look at Iberia's posters in the seventies: nice brunettes in polka dot suits advertised the Spanish airlines! Antonio Canales cannot act as a showman with a speech repeated wearily night after night. Manuela Carrasco cannot fill in the impasse between New Year's Eve dinner and the countdown - with all that it means - no matter how much Puerto Rican coffee rocks the foie... or how good the intentions were of the organization, of which there is no doubt (nor of its good work).

The aim of this three-way enterprise was "to show the international crowd flamenco culture" - and not flamenco "for tourists", it specified -, but perhaps the mistake lay in not having an international crowd of like mind. Unfortunately, the Germans and Italians who buy a package trip for around a thousand euros to spend the last days of the year at twenty degrees (hard times for the jet set) needn't be interested in that exceptional flamenco being offered to them free of charge for being guests at Don Miguel, nor in the music, and if we daresay, in the culture. If only they were. Their demands were limited to the shows starting on time. And on the contrary, it is feasible to find a crowd allergic to clichés on the international cultured music circuits, which is where flamenco (with all its infrastructure) and public institutions concerned with its promotion could devote their economic efforts. By the way, the cost of this trial was not disclosed, but it is supposed to be considerable.

And if the organization's good intentions are not in question, even less so is the bill's great artistic quality (aside from the opening show, with all due respect). In order.

Dorantes was the first. The pianist from Lebrija presented 'Sur' in a small format with Tomás de Perrate adding the album's vocal touches. The truth is that with a complete orchestra at Seville's Alcázar, with Tino di Geraldo, with Esperanza Fernández, the work shone more brilliantly, but the compact version compared favorably. Those very-much-little-not-at-all flamenco types of music have the same visual conjurations, the identical film mood; the same class, the identical taste. 'Sur', 'La danza de las sombras', 'Di, di, Ana'. Pity that while those beautiful compositions were flowing, entire rows at the hall were emptying out...

Dorantes and Tomás de Perrate (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

Just the opposite occurred the following night, but that has a two-part explanation. On the one hand, among the contest winners of Seville's festival was Rocío Bazán, a cantaora from the area. She brought her diehard fans with her. On the other hand, Antonio Canales offered a preview of 'Ojos verdes', his upcoming show. An unquestionable lure. Before a packed lecture hall, the winners of Seville's 2002 Bienal de Flamenco Young Performers Contest, whom the festival's sponsor prologued as "the future, so flamenco is well taken care of". Rocío Bazán singing, Eduardo Trasierra playing the guitar and Mercedes Ruiz dancing, starting with malagueñas a recital which turned out to lack rhythm and be too long. The young artists had their chance, therefore as compensation, to open the fan of styles as much as they wanted (trilla, taranta, alegrías, tientos, zapateado...) and to show that the part of the prize awarded in the way of galas redounds to experience. The cantaora wins for restraint and the guitarist for supreme justice. The bailaora came in full force, as she showed throughout the recital, including the final pataíta (rapid feet stamping) with Antonio Canales and Juan de Juan. Both offered, as had been announced, a short piece from the show the company will soon dedicate to the poet Fernando Villalón, accompanied by Rafael de Utrera and Londro on cante and Daniel Méndez on the guitar. "Green eyes, green like..." those of that utopian bull which the poet sought, that universal impossibility.

Arcángel (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

Arcángel returned flamenco to the height of anti-Spanish-clichés the night before New Year's Eve. The young Huelva-born cantaor brought to the hotel in Marbella 'Desde la tierra', a cante show with choral touches. The host was right when he said that "his art and his throat are privileged instruments", as are the guitar and the music by Juan Carlos Romero, the work's cornerstone. Refreshed traditional cante, Morente echoes, Alosno spirit, black eyes on a gigantic dual screen ("oh, the blackness of your gaze"). And the white voices of Seville's Maestranza Theater, giving him depth; and Bobote and Eléctrico, giving him rhythm; and sensitive souls' hair, standing on end. "Olé to the great ones!" said Estrella Morente on receiving the toast. And the great one became even greater, drunk on fandangos.

Manuela Carrasco was the last. With dinner just swallowed and waiting to eat the twelve lucky grapes in the countdown, the crowd made it as hard for her as it had for Gerardo Núñez and company at the piano bar days before. She fulfilled her duty with dignity, handling well the clinking of glasses and the murmurs... but few paid attention to that majestic figure who took three measures to raise up her arms. She performed her usual repertoire, this time under the name 'Jondo adonai' and with Juan de Juan in the male dance numbers. No comment.

The crowd had made it difficult for the Sevillian bailaora... as much so as it had for Gerardo Núñez and company the four previous nights at the I Love the Golf Café. The first night's gloomy experience made it possible to remedy the blunder in the next three shows. And they were the first ones to be surprised, musicians used to an almost liturgical respect. Despite the variations, Gerardo Núñez (guitar), Perico Sambeat (saxophone), Pablo Martín (bass), Rafael de Utrera (cante), Cepillo (percussion) and Carmen Cortés (clapping) offered four masterful shows of flamenco-oxygenated-via-jazz that the group materialized in compositions by the Jerez-born guitarist included on 'Calima' (Karonte, 1999), on Carmen Linares' album 'Un ramito de locura' (Universal, 2002) or in assignments for drama shows such as 'Yerma'; in compositions by Sambeat such as 'El misterio está en el aire', a song included on 'Cruce de caminos' (Resistencia, 2001); or in revisions guided by Rafael de Utrera's throat such as the cross between Camarón and Lorca which 'Nana del caballo grande' turns out to be. Lucky were those privileged enough to feel the complete devotion of musicians for whom courage is not incompatible with sensitivity, willing to shake up the audience (even when it doesn't deserve to be called so), making it a participant (even when undeserving) of their delightful dialogue.

Gerardo Núñez and Perico Sambeat (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

But that "stage" was bursting with skill... Both Gerardo Núñez and Carmen Cortés had each been spending the evenings prior to the concerts teaching their respective know how to groups of local youths (why not to the hotel's foreign crowd?). Too much demographic density for the dimensions of the improvised classroom. The Catalan-born bailaora, the author of skillful clapping and some pataítas in the night shows, instructed in the mastery of soleá por bulerías, uttering maxims of the sort: "The aim is that once you're sure of the step, you have to express yourself. Dancing depends on who does it, so you have to bring out your expression, be original". Or of the sort: "I want energy! You have to search for the right moment, wait till the last minute to give flamenco that energy it needs". And everybody did what they could, in front of a small crowd of curious onlookers, in the few square centimeters they had. Gerardo Núñez's master classes were less claustrophobic and therefore more pleasurable for the listener. "Silence, please. Let's get going with that bulería flourish". And then tran tran trrrraaaan.

Carmen Cortés en clase
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

Other complements flamencoizing the hotel? On the one hand, Carlos Arbelos' photo exhibit and Zaafra's paintings united under the title 'Son del sur. Primos y brothers'; and that of Jorge Arroyo, titled 'Paraíso flamenco'. On the other hand, the showroom with designs by Paco Olea, a display of which was given by the hotel's public relations accompanied by and translating Antonio Canales in the presentations. "Hoy es un día muy especial. Today is a very special day". Every day was special; those who sponsored the festival were right. The minimum percentage of art lovers at the hotel in the Costa del Sol's capital felt privileged. The masses felt like the masses.

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