Carlos Saura puts the silhouette of a bailaora on the poster for the 14th Bienal de Flamenco de Sevilla.

At the presentation of the poster, were municipal culture delegate Juan
Carlos Marset, Matilde Coral, Esperanza Fernández, Israel Galván
and José Miguel Évora among others. The festival’s
director, Domingo González, announced that the photo exhibit “Saura
Flamenco”, now in the US, would be seen complete for the first time
at the upcoming Bienal.

In a letter read by González, Saura (Huesca, 1932) regretted not
being able to attend the presentation as he was in Vienna preparing his
new film “Io, Don Gioanni”, about the life of Mozart Lorenzo
da Ponte, in particular because it had been “quite a challenge as
well as a great pleasure” to design the poster for this “prestigious
and much-admired festival”.

Domingo González

The source of the image is a black and white photograph of Belén
Amaya taken during rehearsals for the filming of “Flamenco”,
a backlit image with large rectangular panels, a prop the director has
used in his flamenco musicals from “Carmen” to “Iberia”
explained Saura. In the message he pointed out that this innovative element
“complements the style of Belén Maya” which is why
he selected this particular image, digitalized, where he uses the panels
to combine the basic colors red, yellow and blue.

Hans Meinke, Saura’s photo editor, said Saura had designed a “truly
attractive poster” by digitalizing the old photo, and “mistreating
it a dozen different ways”, giving it new dimension and turning
it into something completely new.

Matilde Coral con José Luis Montoya

“Saura is not only a filmmaker, but a parallel creative personality
of the same level in photography” according to Meinke who recalled
that, after starting out at the age of 18, he only gave up professional
photography to devote himself to cinema, but he continues to practice
it as a hobby and “not one day passes when he doesn’t take
pictures”.

The director of the 14th Bienal which is devoted to dance, underlined
the unique relationship Saura maintains with flamenco and its artists
on a human and professional level.

He also pointed out that the festival has the tradition of inviting painters
and photographers like Rafael Alberti, Joaquín Sáenz, Francisco
Moreno Galván, Antonio Saura, Juan Romero or Luis Gordillo to design
the poster, “but almost no one as professionally close to the very
development of flamenco in the last 30 years” during which time
he stated there was a before and after ever since Saura’s work with
Antonio Gades.

EFE
Fotos: Manny Rocca