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2006 MONT DE MARSAN FLAMENCO FESTIVAL.
ANTONIO EL PIPA, ‘DE TABLAO’
Tablao El Pipa
Silvia Calado. Mont de Marsan (France),
July 5th, 2006
See photo
gallery / See
online video
Conde Hermanos Guitar
Showcase
‘De tablao’. Antonio el Pipa Company. Antonio
el Pipa: directing, choreography, baile. María
José Franco: solo bailaora. Alejandra Gudí,
Marta Fernández, Gloria Pérez: dance corps.
Juana la del Pipa, Manuel Tañé, David Carpio:
cante. Pascual de Lorca, Pepe del Morao: guitars. Joaquín
Flores: clapping. Concha Vargas: guest artist (baile). Mariana
Cornejo: special collaboration (cante). 18th Mont de Marsan
Flamenco Festival 2006. Espace François Mitterrand.
Mont de Marsan (France), July 5th, 2006. 9 p.m.
Antonio el Pipa and María
José Franco (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)
It’s not an easy task to turn the huge multi-purpose
pavilion of Espace François Mitterrand into a tablao
- you know, those remakes of the singing cafés which
spread across the main cities in Spain half a century ago.
Small, intimate, clichés. And brimming over with live
art. Much less so when, by chance, the show coincides with
the soccer game determining the remaining finalist in the
2006 World Cup: France-Portugal. The patches of empty seats
so attested. But flamenco is a resourceful artform, and taking
advantage of the devotion of those who forsook their soccer
patriotism, the show by the Antonio
el Pipa Company managed to come off smelling like a rose.
The recreation of a night at a tablao. No more, no less.
As was already seen at the past festivals in Madrid and Jerez,
Antonio el Pipa, nearly more than starring in, sets the stage
for what happens. He has a couple of solo appearances, his
alegrías and his soleá, in the purest ‘Pipa’
style; no showing off technique, the weight split between
the rest of the corps, the search for feeling and the crowd.
All the rest is an invitation for other artists to enjoy his
tablao. The enticement is powerful. Juana la del Pipa, Concha
Vargas and Mariana Cornejo. The three of them do that popular,
personal, artful, unpolished flamenco the French enthusiasts
like so much. And the truth is that the three of them offered
moments to be enjoyed. The scene with Juana and Concha, cante
and baile, like godmothers wrenching out their grief por soleá,
was perfect.
Antonio el Pipa and Christian
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz)
It was up to Mariana to add the grace and wit of Cádiz,
rapping out the tanguillos, singing por alegrías and
bulerías. Together with these three huge artists, a
young talent in female baile, María
José Franco. The Cádiz-born bailaora appeared
por seguiriyas, a piece in which she seeks to balance her
natural smoothness with the guts inherent in the style. And
all of it is framed in a whole choreographed even in the greetings
and the encore with a child included, with embellishments
by the dance corps, with all the clichés together and
enhanced in the poor stage design, with so much, so long-lasting
and so varied that it’s hard not to please everyone,
at least at a given moment. Tablao El Pipa also works at Mont
de Marsan.
Photo
gallery. Mont de Marsan Flamenco Festival
Click the images to enlarge |
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| Antonio el
Pipa
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz)
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Antonio el
Pipa
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz) |
Antonio el
Pipa and María José Franco
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz) |
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| María
José Franco
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz)
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Antonio el
Pipa and Concha Vargas
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz) |
Concha Vargas
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz) |
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Conde
Hermanos Guitar Showcase
S.C. Mont de Marsan, July 5th, 2006
Dani Méndez
at Workshop Guitarras Conde Hermanos
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz)
The flamenco activity is non-stop.
Besides the courses taught at the Ecole de Musique,
other complementary activities encourage enthusiasts
to get to know flamenco from all perspectives.
One of them is the exhibit of the most representative
guitar models by the prestigious workshop
Conde Hermanos Guitars at the Hôtel
du Département. And on the afternoon of
Wednesday, July 5th, those works of art came to
life. With luthier Felipe Conde as the host, all
of the guitar maestros teaching classes at the
festival appeared at the palatial room: Daniel
Méndez, Rafael Rodríguez ‘Cabeza’,
David Vargas, Óscar Lago and Pierre Pradal.
And they brought sound out of the guitars by the
heirs of Domingo Esteso. It is precisely the founder
of the dynasty who lends his name to the company’s
new jewels, a couple of newly built guitars from
1915 which delighted guitarists with their old-time
echo and embraceable size. The crowd filling the
venue enjoyed something as unusual as listening
to the pure sound of guitar just a few inches
away and without any amplifiers. And all of it
while they learned to differentiate the sounds
depending on the types of wood and above all,
on the personality and technique of each artist.
Not in vain, in the hands of each of them, did
the same guitar ‘sing’ differently.
And the thing is that there’s one guitar
right for each guitarist. They just have to find
each other.
Online
store. Conde Hermanos Guitars
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