SPECIAL FEATURE. BEHIND THE SCENES WITH... DOSPORMEDIO &
CÍA., ‘SONATA’
From the 18th
to the 21st
Silvia Calado. Madrid,
November 11th, 2008
Translation: Joseph Kopec
Dospormedio:
rehearsals of ‘Sonata’. Photo gallery, by Daniel
Muñoz
Madrid. Dance Conservatory
on Soria Street. Room 2. Four in the afternoon. Fall, nearly
winter. Nine dancers and one pianist. Eight pairs of shoes.
One pair of ballet shoes. Ssssshhhh. One of the
latest rehearsals of ‘Sonata’ begins with a
choreography in silence. Two days from now, Dospormedio
& Compañía – directed by Rafael
Estévez and Nani Paños – premieres a
new creation at Seville’s Flamenco Thursdays: “Recital
de piano bailado por nueve bailarines de forma coral”
(“Piano recital danced by nine dancers in a group”).
But first, silence...
Click
the image to enlarge |
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Dospormedio
& Compañía. Rehearsals of
'Sonata'
(Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
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Afterwards, fourteen sonatas
by Father Soler will sound and a fandango performed on piano
by Edith Peña, clapping, castanets, heel tapping...
and breathing. Having chosen music by Antonio Soler y Ramos
(Olot 1729 • El Escorial 1783) is, besides a tribute
to the admired Antonio, a way of “vindicating Spanish
music for Spanish dance”. And specifically, these
eighteenth-century scores by the priest give this company
“a lot of chances to follow our norm of the coexistence
of disciplines and the search for modernity in our own roots”,
as Estévez and Paños explain.
Flamenco “evidently”, bolero
school, Spanish classical, contemporary and neoclassical
are the disciplines which converse in this show. But, as
its creators point out, “unlike ‘Flamenco XXI’,
Spanish dance is stressed much more”. And the thing
is that, as Antonio Ruz, collaborator on the baile and choreography,
elaborates, “springing from that Baroque music is
the bolero school, a type of music which is used for all
dancing and allows every style”.
Precisely in the era when Father Soler
was composing his two hundred sonatas, besides masses, motets,
psalms and other concerts, taking shape in Spain was what
some theorists call ‘pre-flamenco’ music. “They
aren’t clearly-defined flamenco styles, although some
of them do stick out their head in its more primitive forms”,
Estévez adds. That’s why – the bailaor
and choreographer goes on - “we end with the fandango
as a link to what came afterwards... and to what, in the
case of our work, is yet to come”. All of it moreover
explains why in the choreographies designed by Paños,
Estévez and Ruz for this selection of sonatas –
which, be careful, are profane and not sacred – there
is room for everything from tanguillos to seguiriyas, with
soleá por bulerías and the aforementioned
fandango in between.
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the image to enlarge |
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Rafael
Estévez. Dospormedio & Compañía.
Rehearsals of 'Sonata' (Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
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“The victory
lies in the multitude of concepts”
Which are performed on stage, always in
a group that is multidisciplinary and very involved, besides
by the three of them, by the lineup from ‘Flamenco
XXI’: David Coria, Álvaro Paños, Christian
Lozano, Concha Jareño, Rosana Romero and Carmen Manzanera.
“They’re all first-rate dancers we have a lot
to be grateful to, since upon not having aid or patronage,
the production has been by everyone”, Paños
comments. The role they play in this company is going to
grow, since as Estévez lets on, “in the next
project we’re going to give people a chance to choreograph
who have a talent for it. The victory lies in the multitude
of concepts. And we feel the responsibility of having the
field of choreography in Spanish dance and flamenco expand
and not remain in jack, queen, king, of course, making these
young talents work really hard”.
And all of a sudden, hands crowd together
by the piano which are clacking castanets. It isn’t
adornment, but rather much more. In 1931, an anonymous castanet
maker admitted to a journalist in the magazine ‘Estampa’
the following: “I don’t know if you’ve
found out; but I, now being old, have. Flamenco dancing
is nothing if it isn’t accompanied by the tone of
castanets. The body which is dancing vibrates to the clacking,
without being able to resist its mighty influence...”.
And they agree in Dospormedio. “Castanets are cool.
They’re a unique percussion medium in Spanish dance
which requires a huge amount of work if you don’t
always want to use it simply as ornamentation”, Estévez
says. To which Paños adds that “we use them
as an instrument, just like feet, to make music, to give
dynamics and color to a show in which the musical weight
rests on just one piano”.
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the image to enlarge |
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Nani
Paños. Dospormedio & Compañía.
Rehearsals of 'Sonata' (Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
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But they also use silence
to make music. All of them here advocate the idea that “silence
is music and is rhythm”. And they also share the need,
in such an energetic show, that, “the spectator’s
ears have to breathe... just like his eyes”. That
is why they just walk at times. “When we’re
walking around it’s also dance, it’s also choreography”,
they state. And on seeing them walk down the street wrapped
up in their still fresh sweat, on seeing them on their way
to the necessary sugar fix between rehearsals, on seeing
them talk about their work... there dance still goes on,
their choreography still goes on.
| Dospormedio
& Compañía premieres ‘Sonata’
on November 13th at Seville’s 2008 Flamenco
Thursdays and presents ‘Flamenco XXI’
on November 20th at the Torrelodones Flamenco
Festival (Madrid) |
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