The festival registers the attendance of thirty thousand spectators, with sell-outs

Flamenco-world.com, November 2005

Málaga en Flamenco 2005 has passed its first staging with flying colors. The Málaga festival registered a total of thirty thousand spectators in the two hundred seventy scheduled activities, ninety percent of which were sell-outs. The satisfaction of the festival, whose aim was to return flamenco activity to the province of the Costa del Sol, is that of the three hundred artists who participated, eighty percent are natives of this land. The greatest example of these stakes laid on local flamenco could be found in the show ‘Málaga’, seen by over six thousand spectators in its tour around the main theaters in Andalusia. Paco de Lucía, Antonio el Pipa, Chano Lobato, Mario Maya, Miguel Poveda, Rocío Molina and Fosforito are just a few of the artists endorsing the beginning of this festival.

Cañeta de Málaga in 'De tablao' (Photo: Málaga en flamenco)

‘Málaga’, according to its director Paco Mora, “has received a unanimous reaction by the audiences at all the theaters we've been to”, among them, Seville's Teatro de la Maestranza, Córdoba's Gran Teatro and Jerez's Teatro Villamarta. But it was not the only production belonging to Málaga en Flamenco 2005. Seven shows were premiered in total, five of them produced by the festival, of a total of ten shows on the bill performed at different venues throughout the two months of the festival. Standing out, among others, is ‘El eterno retorno’ by Rocío Molina, ‘De tablao’ by Antonio el Pipa and the closing gala ‘Dos generaciones’.

In total, twenty-six performances were held on stages such as La Malagueta Bullring, the capital's Teatro Cánovas and Teatro Cervantes, Teatro del Carmen in Vélez-Málaga, Palacio de Congresos y Exposiciones in Estepona, La Colegiata in Antequera... In addition to that, there were nearly seventy shows at peñas belonging to the two existing federations in the province. Complementing the live flamenco was a busy agenda of related activities, including Manolo Sanlúcar's guitar course, showings of films about flamenco such as ‘Flamenco’ by Carlos Saura and ‘Herencia flamenca’ by Michael Meert, exhibits and lectures.

Perhaps the extensive duration of the program and the scattered nature of the shows on the calendar are aspects to be improved upon in the next edition, scheduled for autumn 2007. Now then, the proposal is praiseworthy to spread the festival's repercussion to the regional area, thus struggling against the norm of some festivals which schedule shows that are born and die in their premiere.

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