Antonio el Pipa changes tone in 'Pasión y ley'

The bailaor premieres "a show of contrasts" at Jerez 2004 with Lola Greco
as a guest and music by Dorantes

Silvia Calado Olivo, January 2004
Photos: Daniel Muñoz

Life's contradictions, that is the core upholding 'Pasión y ley' ('Passion and Law'), the premiering show with which Antonio el Pipa raises the curtain of the 2004 Jerez Festival. Unlike his previous shows, the bailaor delegates the show's creation to a "fascinating" team: Lola Greco as choreographer and guest dancer, Luis Olmo as scenarist, Paco Tous as stage director, Dorantes as music composer, Chiqui López on stage and costume design, Enrique el Extremeño and Tía Juana la del Pipa as cantaores, and he himself as choreographer and bailaor. The show has a "plot which tells the story of a sculptor who debates between the passional and the legal", thus the subtitle "contrasts".

Antonio el Pipa

Antonio el Pipa faces 'Pasión y ley' as a challenge. "I'm seeking my evolution, but not my revolution". He makes it clear with this sentence: "I might be a bailaor with a new vision, with a vision of the future. I'm not going to act like a dancer now, but rather a bailaor who's going to afford the luxury of dancing with Lola Greco and nearly touching on the classical and the contemporary; of course, without diving in entirely, since I have tremendous respect for those disciplines". To put his followers' minds at ease, he assures that "I'm going to dance my flamenco styles, as always". In fact, he dances a soleá sung to him by Enrique el Extremeño who, together with Tía Juana la del Pipa, plays the roll of 'tradition'.

The cast of the Jerez-born bailaor's seventh show is completed with Lola Greco as 'passion', bailaora María José Franco as 'law', Antonio el Pipa as 'the sculptor' and guitarists Juan Moneo and Pascual de Lorca and cantaores Manuel Tañé and Miguel Rosendo as 'the workers'. Without a role on stage, but key to the show, is also Lebrija-born pianist Dorantes, composer of the music. And that is a novelty: "It's going to be the first time I dance to music other than the cante and toque I have live".

The myth of Pygmalion

	Antonio el Pipa

All together they narrate, via baile and music, the story of "a sculptor who marries a woman who's missing the spark of passion. And that is contributed by Lola Greco, the sculpture which comes to life as a flying fairy. We flee from the typical triangle of the married man with a wife and lover". Antonio el Pipa also sees "a touch of the myth of Pygmalion, that of the sculptor who falls in love with his sculpture" in the plot. And that is reflected in the paso a dos he performs together with Lola Greco, where "I adopt new esthetics and a new discipline. It's turned out to be a perfect job of searching, in which we've had perfect understanding. She's contributed a very fresh vision, aiming for progress". And, moreover, an extensive range of styles, which makes the show approach "from native flamenco" to contemporary dance.

'Pasión y ley', which has financial backing by the Community of Madrid and the Andalusia Junta, puts forward a theme "which anyone can identify with, since it makes a reference to the contradictions in life of any person, that double life which confronts what we want to be with what we can be. Besides, we leave the meaning open to everyone's free interpretation; we offer them poetry and contrasts".

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