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OF FLAMENCO TEXTURE AND TASTEBUDS
Fernando González-Caballos
Sunday,
August 12th, 2001
XLI Festival de Cante de Las Minas. La Unión
Carmen
Grilo
Rafael Amargo: "Amargo"
The
third performance of La Unión's XLI Festival de Cante de las Minas afforded
spectators the opportunity to taste the different, and occasionally contradictory
possibilities that a music like flamenco can offer. Along this line, the program
for the evening of Sunday, the 12th, shuffled between the sweetness of Carmen
Grilo's cante, and the Amargo, bitter dancing of Rafael.
The
unpredictable world of flamenco tends to offer up these paradoxes and broke the
mold to make a young girl from Jerez, just barely seventeen, leap to the forefront
when she was summoned to interpret the role of Cinderella. Everyone knows how
unpleasant comparisons can be, which is why at such a commercially active moment,
when stars who have been more aggressively promoted than their talent deserves,
leave behind a rocky road for those who aren't so generously sponsored, it is
comforting to sit down and listen to a voice as sweet and personal as Carmen Grilo's.
But don't think that was the only surprise of the night, by any means. José
Quevedo, El Bolita, arrived in La Unión one year after the jury was unable
to understand the artistic dimension of his privileged hands. And so it happened,
that the same people who made him feel misunderstood, had to swallow their words
and doff their hats to the exquisite playing which the passage of time, that all-important
factor, will eventually afford the recognition that the jury would have denied
it.
The
couple used the Galician farruca to open the evening and break the ice, shortly
before the dancer's older sister, more in the Jerez style, stopped the hands of
the clock with tientos. Although for really great moments, there were those that
came from Bolita's guitar with a change-of-pace funk-rock tangos, with Pastora
Pavón crossing the Triana bridge to meet the Panaera.
Photo: José
Albaladejo
Oh!
Followers of musical fashions take note, because this young woman is capable of
spitting out verses to alegrías such as: "Si yo tuviera jurdó,
compraría un keli pa viví juntos los dos" (If I had money,
I'd buy a little place for you and me). Right there, in that midpoint between
the classic and the modern can be found the highly personalized key to a style
which can give outsized goosebumps to the most intransigent traditionalist. Especially
when she gets into the seguiriya heritage of Jerez and los Puertos with the styles
of Francisco La Perla, El Marrurro, and the María Borrico closing.
The
most difficult part came when her accompanist dared to play an introduction to
Chacon's malagueña in taranto key, which then wandered through that landscape
and resolved in cartagenera. That was shortly before some Santiago bulerías,
and the amazing fandangos of Chocolate brought the most skeptical individuals
to their feet. So bring on the contest-winners, one after another, or the bitter
dancing of someone from Granada who didn't even have the guts to bring the show
that was announced to La Unión. But oh yes, at least he was clever enough
to credit Montse Cortés with the responsibility for the adaptation in order
to curry audience favor for the Canales-type effects of this dancer. His uneven
performance forged the framework of a success which yours truly can neither add
to, nor subtract from, for there are times when a music critic must give in to
the evidence of a theater full of people on their feet, even though one might
not share the jubilant reaction of the majority. But at the very least I have
to make clear my disapproval of Amargo's vision of seguiriyas dance, because being
footwork champion of the world, and being a monument to male dance, are two very
different things...if you know what I mean!
Translation:
Estela Zatania
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