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Tuesday,
September 19th.
Javier
Barón. Dance.
Theater de La Maestranza.
BARONÍAS,
ESCUDERÍAS
(baronies and racing teams)
The
old man wandered around the stage, and finally took a seat in the corner, where
he could observe everything. He’d left a pair of white dancing boots on the floor:
he’d left the idea of Vicente Escudero. Javier Barón picked them up: clean,
triangular, in observance of his law. Elegance and geometry with no emotional
disturbances in this respectful and somewhat distant homage that went from Barón
to Escudero (from baron to page).
Vicente
Escudero (1888-1980) may not have been a great bailaor, but he was the
only multifaceted flamenco dancer, apart from being one of the most fascinating
personalities in this art. His colleagues included Picasso, Miró, Buñuel,
Man Ray… He wore white boots.
The
bronze of the cantaores shone behind steel: they sat behind forged figures
that served as seats for four young bailaores. Little else was added to
the stage; just three light bulbs and three chairs. David Lagos began with a searing
seguiriyas. ‘Dance of steel! Dance of bronze!’ The show also closed with
seguiriyas, twisted by Segundo Falcón.
José
Quevedo "Bolita" and Javier Patino were the guitarists, and Faustino
Núñez was the musical director.
There
are bailaores that appear seated and then stand. Javier Barón walked
onstage, he sat and fussed with his hair—decorating his dancer’s interior—, until
a young man (Pedro Córdoba) danced a zambra of Sabicas in the style
of a precocious Vicente del Sacromonte.
The
alegrías were not sung, but Barón offered ten minutes of
footwork without music, to go on to the farruca, symbolizing, with this
passage, his artistic training. In the zapateado one was not reminded so
much of the white boots, but of the dozens of black biographical boots hanging
in ‘ˇSólo por arte!,’ premiered by the bailaor from Alcalá
de Guadaira in the last Bienal. Punctuating his moderation with exclamations
indicates his good taste.
The
four young bailaores represent the avant-garde of the soleá,
which Barón finished off in a quick ending. Projected onto a screen, his
drawings were animated by the noise of the motors of his dance... A detail also
included in another recent homage by Israel
Galván.
For
the finale, the legacy: the finished seguiriya; the contribution to baile
that Vicente made exactly sixty years ago. To this, Javier integrates his
silky style, and the four dancers respond swishing... Cotton Cubism in a show
lasting 57 minutes, with a "making of" on screen as the final touch.
Luis
Clemente
Translated by Norman Paul Kliman
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