Rocío Molina and concept. Specifying reasons and arguments is a thing of the past. 'Oro viejo' is well in the past. The turning point might be spotted in 'Cuando las piedras vuelen'. Stemming from that way of building from abstractions is 'Vinática', a show without a show in which snapshots and excerpts rule. And also the unforeseeable. A trunk with the stage design and wardrobe didn’t reach its destination. Far from being daunted or giving explanations, she worked it out with her crew. Nobody knew the elements were missing. The solution, in fact, was to remove even more, duplicating the resource used a couple of nights earlier by Israel Galván: leaving the stage bare. And what that did was to breathe even more might into the bailaora, who in her walking-dancing-touching-expressing concentrates the strengths, senses and directions of this proposal of hers, which could be seen as something beyond herself after winning the 2010 National Dance Prize as a performer. Now it’s time to create.
Shattered glass, shattered seguiriyas, shattered alegrías, proximity to the abyss, her defiant gaze, the joy of dancing, her body in spirals, her body foreshortened, her feet stormy, the dual guitar, mandola and cante, zambra, bulería, cante, compás, tap and silence... broad and tense silence. Molina reduces to their essence the pieces of this puzzle, whose positions remain absolutely secret in the end. What she allows to be made out are strokes, sketches, ‘micro-roads’ which die out just as they are taken; which are hidden just as they are shown. And spectators have only two alternatives: to receive them in their fragmentation or to play with the pieces in order to put together a story. That one was about a woman who drank to forget, who forgot to remember, who took sips of a wine which had both the gift of hurting and healing her.
Raperos Canasteros:
Diego Carrasco, Tomasito & Junior Odéon. Nîmes (France), January 20th, 2012
Tomasito, Diego Carrasco y Junior, 'Raperos Canasteros'
(Foto Daniel
Muñoz)
Who else was going to put the finishing touch on the 2012 Nîmes Flamenco Festival, if not? Yes, of course, Diego Carrasco. But this time the charismatic artist, who has a large court of fans in this land, didn’t wish to be alone. He wanted to become the patriarch of a new project which was born that very same night on stage at the Odéon: 'Raperos canasteros'. Tomasito and Junior are the other two vertices of this explosive triangle in which a thousand and one forms of raps are combined to the compás, accompanied on guitar by Curro Carrasco, on bass by Ignacio Cintado and by percussionist Ané Carrasco. First, each of them had his own space. Diego began by remembering Moraíto, going on to alternate previews of new songs from the album he is putting the final touches on with now classic tunes from his repertoire. With the children’s song from “Top Cat” por bulerías, he presented Triana-born Junior on stage. And straight off, he introduced himself: “I’m the kid who likes rap and mixes it with flamenco”. He did a version of “verde que te quiero verde”, called on the importance of words, shot them and, with a lot of swing, affirmed that “the world’s going backwards”. Tomasito lit up the stage and the faces of everyone present with his boundless art; a little crazy, a little surreal, a little baile, a lot of compás. 'Mare, mare', 'Soleá punk' and 'Torrotrón' turned things red hot, ready for the three of them to get together on stage to the shout of “hit it”. And they turned the red velvet of the theater upside down, alternating raps to the sound of 'Química' and what will be Diego Carrasco’s next hit: 'Gitano hippy'. It’s stuff that happens here, in Nîmes de la Frontera. And there’ll be more next year.
Photo gallery, by Daniel Muñoz.
Rocío Molina / Raperos Canasteros
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