2007 MONT DE MARSAN FLAMENCO FESTIVAL.
CLOSING GALA: RAFAELA CARRASCO, ROCÍO MOLINA &
FUENSANTA LA MONETA
7 maestros 7
S.C. Mont de Marsan, July 7th, 2007
Closing gala: ‘Maestros’.
Rafaela Carrasco, Rocío Molina, Fuensanta
la Moneta: baile. José Valencia, David
Palomar: cante. Daniel Méndez, Eugenio Iglesias:
guitar. 19th Mont de Marsan Flamenco Festival 2007. Hall
de Nauques. Mont de Marsan (France), July 7th, 2007. 10
p.m.
Rocío Molina
(Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
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Mont de Marsan has knocked the close
of its flamenco festival up a notch. The gala ‘Maestros’,
a formula which premiered last year with Isabel Bayón,
Alicia Márquez and Alejandro Granados, has managed
for the final touch not to be mere entertainment after
dessert, but rather a show worthy of the best stage. And
since that’s not the case, it has even more merit.
The technical, acoustic and stage deficiencies of this
venue, which is nothing but a giant hangar, remained behind
the scenes. On stage, only the best came out of the artists,
coincidentally, seven... on the seventh day of the seventh
month of the year two thousand seven. However, it isn’t
a matter of the occult, but of quality and responsibility
to the art by such young artists. That isn’t lost,
no.
Throughout the week, between classes,
they put together a show between all of them which left
thirteen hundred people speechless. It isn’t easy
to silence such a big crowd at a celebrity dinner. But
they all managed to. Daniel
Méndez played what he still had left from the
day before. He opened with a soleá with overwhelming
might. And he saved that energy to accompany David
Palomar por seguiriyas. They both formed a cante and
toque tandem of the kind which seems tailor-made, as if
blended into one, in music, in expression, in intensity.
They used the same rhythm and the same emotional tone
to bring Fuensanta
la Moneta out on stage, the group now strengthened
with Eugenio Iglesias on toque and José Valencia
on cante. The Granada-born bailaora was impressive. She
has the gesture, the eyes, the color, the shapes. And
she adds to it a feline way of understanding baile. She
gets ready, tenses up, snarls and pounces for the kill.
She left the stage pounding her chest. Thank God the crowd
was given a break to take it all in.
Fuensanta la Moneta and David
Palomar (Photo Daniel Muñoz)
Another tight-knit pair. José
Valencia and Eugenio Iglesias got together to bring
up the cantes from the mines. The cantaor gave himself
up to his audience. And the ‘his’ is stressed,
since here he’s a much-loved artist. The group got
back together por alegrías for Rocío Molina’s
baile. The Málaga-born artist added an epilogue
to the performance she offered a couple of days ago at
the Singing Café. Her pastel dress, her hair pinned
back, the rose. And precious dance, like art deco. Her
body variations sound like sighs. But now then, when it’s
time for the quiebro, what guts. Personal baile. Multi-dimensional
baile. And the crowd, ecstatic. The Sevillian guitarist,
also a course instructor, offered a sample of his solo
toque, a combination of yesterday and today. Baile returned
with the third maestra, Rafaela
Carrasco, the veteran. Who had the idea of premiering
a little invention she thought of over the last few days:
wearing a bata de cola while placing herself between two
cantaores, having them sing fandangos unaccompanied and
finding the way to fit other rhythms into them such as
those of tangos or bulerías. And the invention
works. Creativity is irrevocably linked to her baile (in
a bata de cola, eh) which, on top of it, is plastic, musical
and feeling-laden. The audience no longer knew how to
express their enthusiasm, since moreover, the thing is
that each bailaora showed them a different world of her
own in view of feelings. But not incompatible. If it’s
going to be hard for the three of them to coincide again
on a bill, it’ll be much more so for them to dance
together. And they did so, with a final bulería
in which they played with contrasting differences and
finding a common denominator. Mont de Marsan gave rise
to a perhaps unique flamenco moment. And so the countdown
began for its twentieth anniversary, which promises to
be very, very special.
José Valencia and Fuensanta
la Moneta (Photo Daniel Muñoz)
