CÓRDOBA’S WHITE NIGHT OF FLAMENCO 2009
LEBRIJANO & FAIÇAL, ARCÁNGEL, JOSÉ
MERCÉ…
When flamenco left the Ommiad
city sleepless
Silvia Calado. Córdoba, June 21st, 2009
Photos: Daniel Muñoz
 Arcángel
and Miguel Ángel Cortés (Photo
Daniel Muñoz) |
|
Andalusians have the custom of going for
a stroll in the cool evening air. Around nine o’clock
at night, they leave the cover of the indoors and walk around
the streets of their villages or cities in search of some
corner where, as the night develops, the temperature lets
up a little bit until noon the next day. But sometimes it
so happens that it’s nine o’clock at night and
the thermometers still read 38º Centigrade. That’s
just what happened on the night of June 20th to the 21st,
2009 in Córdoba, the White Night of Flamenco... and
it will happen a great many more times from now to September.
That’s what summer is like in these whereabouts.
And if the daily hope of cool air is joined
by such an irresistible reason as that of being able to
attend for free a good handful of flamenco recitals at the
city’s most fitting enclaves, it is no surprise that
Córdoba’s residents and a great many outsiders
literally took to the streets, courtyards and squares. According
to the Statistics Institute of Andalusia, the city of the
Ommiads had a population of 325,453 inhabitants last year.
And according to City Hall, 200,000 Córdoba residents
took part in the White Night’s first edition. The
estimate for this year was to double that, which was obviously
an exaggeration… but the figure was surpassed by fifty
thousand people. A smashing success for this city which
keeps on racking up attractions and, above all, for flamenco
which, in these times of crises (some real and others created
by the media), demonstrates its ability to draw crowds,
its multiple artistic attractions and its capacity as a
catalyst of cultural life.
Sound check with an audience and
a photo stroll
 Photo
exhibit
(Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
|
The crowd was devoted from early on. Even
though the performance by Juan
Peña ‘El Lebrijano’ & Faiçal
wasn’t going to be until 10:30 at night, the Plaza
de las Tendillas was already half-filled an hour and a half
beforehand. A sound check with an audience, olé.
Families were coming and going along Paseo Gran Capitán
between black-and-white photographs by Ruvén Afanador,
still surprising the puppets of ‘Cuentos por seguiriyas’
in the improvised wardrobe. Some popularized the night’s
greeting to others: “What’s up? Out doing flamenco?”.
Along the back streets leading into the Jewish quarter you
could notice the coming and going, given atmosphere by the
immense echo of “Truena”; that’s to say,
‘En el soto’.
Some took photos on the fun sets “Pa
flamenco yo” spread throughout the city, like the
ones at the fair where you stick your head through a hole
and click!, now I’m a comic... cantaor. Others grabbed
a place at the terraces of the taverns, totally involved
in the night. Well now, there were even special tapas, such
as the fortifying “White Night Stew” which promised
miracles for five euros at the square of the Archaeology
Museum. But it was early for such a big delicacy when the
guitarist of the show ‘De Córdoba a La Habana’
was checking the sound, still with daylight shining upon
the whitewash and the bougainvilleas. A couple of ‘salmorejos’
later, the White Night of Flamenco started to cook up. The
Plaza de las Tendillas was jam-packed. The chairs were as
full as the terraces and so were even the stone benches
of the jardinières. The television station re-broadcasting,
the booths of the Córdoba wines unable to keep up
with things… And Juan Peña devoted to the cause
in the company of Al-Andalusian musicians he gets along
with so well. Together, they endorsed por bulerías
the intercultural brotherhood oozing through every pore
in this city.
Those who couldn’t find a place here
opted to go down to the Mosque to grab a place for the next
show or perhaps to go to the Teatro de la Axerquía
to see the show ‘Cálida hondura’ by bailaor
Daniel
Navarro. At the Patio de los Naranjos, Paco Serrano
was scheduled to play and Arcángel to sing half an
hour before midnight. But despite the flood of people strolling
down Jesús María Street, you had to bear in
mind that - as the local press related the following day
- at that moment another 50,000 people were at República
Argentina watching the mythical Andalusian rock group Medina
Azahara and singer Rosario Flores live. And that’s
not all.
A jondo stroll through the Jewish
quarter
The stroll up to the temple of the Ommiads
could still be taken with time to refresh your throat in
some courtyard perfumed with jasmine and oranges. The people
of Córdoba lived the night as a party they’d
made their own many years ago, when it’s really just
been born. And it is again surprising how great a crowd
was already coming into the Patio de los Naranjos…
and much more so the one that was already inside. The seats
now full, and entire families seated on any step of the
fascinating monument, having picked up red carnations promoting
Córdoba’s candidacy as the Cultural Capital
of Europe 2016 and having passed the fountain which has
offered its crystal-clear water for century upon century.
It was touching how the people took up
for secular purposes a place intended for prayer; formerly
Muslim, now Catholic. The only thing holy about this night
was the crowd’s patience. It waited there with minimum
complaints and a soundtrack that mixed packaged Vicente
Amigo, live verdiales groups and the din of chatter.
The delay now over, the twin bill was opened by Córdoba-born
solo guitarist Paco Serrano and it was finished off by the
long-awaited Arcángel
with his classical cante recital. What an ovation the Huelva-born
cantaor got from the audience when he came out por bulerías
surrounded by a circle of clappers and voices. Now seated
and flanked on toque by Miguel
Ángel Cortés he remained singing to the
minaret por soleá…
A flood of people at the main square
And it was precisely that cante which José
Mercé was performing with Moraíto
on toque when we managed to reach La Corredera. Thank God
we followed the local countrymen down the maze-like streets,
letting other little stages pass by in quaint little squares,
and we went in on the side of the Plaza de las Cañas.
The police had had to cut off access at the other end some
time earlier. Being boosted to see the flood of people listening
to fandangos and cheering left you flabbergasted. Here the
audience was more young than family-oriented, and it was
good for them that the Jerez-born cantaor called “my
people” right away and started to perform his well-known
hits, with beats to move to such as that of alegrías.
The luckiest ones, the neighbors of this magnificent 17th-century
main square, who despite being squeezed together on their
balconies, enjoyed privileged box seats. Below, it was really
hard to move… and even to breathe.
And the night was still young. There was
still ‘Puro y jondo’, a tribute to Córdoba’s
National Contest at the Sala Orive, there was the performance
‘Jondura’ at the Julio Romero de Torres Museum,
there was the hall bullfighting show with cante ‘Taurojondo’
at the Plaza de Conde de Priego, there were the female voices,
there were the young voices… And so on up to a total
of fifty shows starring six hundred artists. In short, it
was again time to have a look at the map-program, one of
the one hundred thousand copies which had been handed out
so efficiently to acquaintances and strangers alike, and
which were folded and unfolded ceaselessly in this successful
second edition of Córdoba’s White Night of
Flamenco. Undoubtedly an event to highlight in color on
the calendar. It’s 3 a.m. The thermometer reads 30º
Centigrade…
