‘Bailes alegres para personas tristes’. Dance: Belén Maya and Olga Pericet. Cante: José Valencia, Miguel Ortega, Jesús Corbacho. Guitar: Javier Patino, Antonia Jiménez. Stage direction: Juan Carlos Lérida. Musical direction: David Montero. Suma Flamenca 2011. Teatros del Canal. Madrid, June 14th, 2011. 8:30 pm

Belén Maya, 'Bailes alegres para personas tristes' (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

Crossing over to the other side is a concern which moved Orpheus and also Alice... “El espejo en que te miras” (“The Mirror You Look at Yourself In”) gives you back an objective reflection. The subjective one is the one that’s at the back... the other part of the lyrics por soleá. That is where Belén Maya searches for herself in ‘Bailes alegres para personas tristes’ (‘Happy Dances for Sad People’). Olga Pericet returns to her that image of otherness in which she projects all kinds of sensations which have to do with sadness and with joy, with light and darkness, with what one is and with what one would like to be, with pleasures and with fears, with seguiriya and with guajira. And baile is the means which is sacrificed to all that emotional purpose, turning out conceptually and esthetically enriched.

Olga Pericet with Jesús Corbacho, Miguel Ortega and Belén Maya (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

‘Bailes alegres para personas tristes’ is a dialogue of feelings. And the steps are determined by expressions which, often enough, transfer to calm, silence, cycles, regards, smiles and tears. The language is therefore released from the formal determining factors of the respective flamenco styles, even though the latter provide the tone and climate. The conventional and the non-conventional coexist fluently in the dancer’s personality of the two stars of this narrative-free tale. And above it, the rebellious personality of each of them ends up prevailing. Belén was one of the first ones to dare to take a step into a different-flamenco-dancing. And Olga is one of the ones who understood afterwards that it was the road to follow. Freely and naturally.

The relationship between both of them in this disturbing space which is white, black, gray and bright pink works by contrast and also by analogies, like magnetized poles which attract and repel one another. And in the encounters, they communicate with each other by means of a body code which doesn’t remain just in the canons of hands and arms, but also in something internal. Each and every nuance of that relationship which sometimes freezes and others burns is backed by the lighting of Ada Bonadei and by the wardrobe of Yaiza Pinillos - whose work enhances the show’s photogenic quality - and, above all else, by the music.

Belén Maya, 'Bailes alegres para personas tristes (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

Live, the initiative is shared by the guitar of Javier Patino, with Antonia Jiménez afterwards, and the cantaor trio in which José Valencia and Miguel Ortega exuded the young mastery which confirms them at the top of today’s cante: the former, brilliant in the soleá por bulerías; the latter, dazzling in the fandango toronjero. And Jesús Corbacho drawing on his “elders” and serving out sweetness. In off, that anonymous voice strove to move us time and time again whose song was ancient, melancholy weeping whose echo seemed to come from the other side of the mirror.