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2012 NÎMES FLAMENCO FESTIVAL. INÉS BACÁN
Beautiful wailing
Silvia Calado. Nîmes, January 21st, 2012
Inés Bacán: cante. Antonio Moya: guitar. Bobote, Gonzalo: clapping. Institut Emmanuel D'Alzon. Nîmes (France), January 21st 2012, 2012. 5 p.m.
The film lighting emphasized even further the dramatic nature. The forceful figure of Inés Bacán, outlined in light, came to life when the technician slapped his hands together like a clapperboard. She amassed the tientos slowly, uttering them to the eyes of her guitarist, Antonio Moya. With her hands, she rocked the compás. With her arms, one around the other, she sketched the loop which she plunges her beautiful wailing into. And she generated the air that feeds back one phase from another. How hard it is nowadays to listen to singing with such feeling, with that absence of imposture, with that control of the passing of time. The clock seems to struggle to keep moving forward when the Lebrija-born cantaora utters a handful of fandangos. And she reels them off as if it were a need for her. The clapping by Bobote and Gonzalo boosted her in the cantiñas, the ones by Pinini sung sweetly and unhurriedly, but also with a witty feeling which made the cantaora imagine herself dancing. She turned her hands. She turned her voice.
A melodious guitar prologue took her to the soleá por bulerías. And she grabbed it right away and slowed it down. The dramatic pauses in the middle of the phases lifted up the emotions to the max, reinforced with lyrics of the kind that are nailed: “What is that madman saying? He isn’t telling any truth, or lies either”. She continued the road inwards with a lullaby, which she rocked with extreme tenderness. By then she was ready for the seguiriya, for that immense sorrow exhaled in the evolution of a trance. It has to be repeated: how hard it is nowadays to listen to singing with such feeling, with that absence of imposture, with that control of the passing of time. The bulerías will then come, but the romance-style ones, the ones clinging so tightly to the land that nobody can uproot them. The audience burst into an ovation full of respect and emotion, which she responded to with some lyrics por carcelera... finally, in solitude.
Inés Bacán, cante maestra
The training course program of the 2012 Nîmes Flamenco Festival went beyond baile and compás this time. At the city’s Music Conservatory, a building with nineteenth-century spirit right next to the cathedral, just a few pupils gathered to attend cante lessons by Inés Bacán. Four students attended on the first afternoon, sitting around the maestra and her attentive sidekick, guitarist Antonio Moya. The first thing she did was to ask them why they’d come to the course, what they knew how to sing, and she asked them to sing it. One por bulerías. The next, por fandangos. The male student, por soleá. And the fourth, a Judeo-Spanish song. While they were seeking each one’s tone and their respective needs, the lyrics por tientos “of crying for you so much” arose. And they dissected them one by one, phase by phase. Where to go in, how to breathe or, as Moya expressed, “how to manage the air”, were matters solved by the maestra and her sidekick with the students, overcoming the five fears, doubts and barriers.
-Student: I think my tone is lower.
-Antonio Moya: No, I think you’re shier...
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Of tangos and jaleos
Théâtre. Nîmes (France), January 20th, 2012
Two millennia ago, Mérida and Nîmes were cities united by Roman civilization. Their valuable ruins, their theater, their amphitheater so attest. And tonight they’re joined by flamenco. The show 'De tangos y jaleos' took to the modern Théâtre the air which characterizes the flamenco made in Extremadura, which is rocked to the sound of tangos and jaleos. Three contrasting voices, those of Alejandro Vega, Domingo el Madalena and La Kaíta; the toque of guitars by Miguel Vargas, Juan Vargas and Nene Salazar; box drum by Francisco Suárez and hints of natural baile by Antonio Silva 'El Peregrino' were joined up on stage to vindicate Extremadura - the land of Canos, Tobalos and Porrinas - as flamenco territory.
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Eva Luisa, 'Acuérdate'
Odéon. Nîmes (France), January 20th, 2012
The seeds which have been sown year after year, decade after decade by international festivals in their respective territories are now yielding their fruit. On Friday night, the 2012 Nîmes Flamenco Festival made room at the Odéon for young local bailaora Eva Luisa, who put on her show 'Acuérdate' before a jam-packed crowd accompanied by guest artists like Niño de Elche and Antonio Moya, among others.
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