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16th FESTIVAL DE JEREZ |
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Text: Estela Zatania DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN Coreography: Rubén Olmo. Soloists: Patricia Guerrero, Eduardo Leal. Dancers: Sara Vázquez, Ana Agraz, Marta Arias, Mónica Iglesias, Maise Márquez, Juan Carlos Cardoso, Ángel Farina, Fernanndo Joménez, Álvaro Paños. Cante: Fabiola, Manuel “El Zambullo”. Guitar: David Carmona, Manuel de la Luz. Percussion: David “Chupete”. Guest artists: Rocío Molina, Pastora Galván.
Back in the nineteen-eighties Lole Montoya became wildly popular singing “Spring is here, a little butterfly told me so”, and right now in Jerez we can well say that spring is just around the corner at the end of February when the Festival de Jerez gets underway. In just fifteen years this event has established itself as the most important flamenco dance festival in the world, and this year, the weather is cooperating with plenty of sunshine, and 70 plus degrees when Rubén Olmo, new director of the Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía, arrived at the San Ginés bodega to present the premiere performance of “Metáfora” accompanied by a large part of the corps de ballet.
Despite a lot of belt-tightening, a complete program is in store for us over the festival’s sixteen days, with performances distributed among three main venues, the Villamarta Theater, the Sala la Compañía and the Villavicencio palace, in addition to an extensive and varied parallel program in pubs and flamenco peñas throughout the city. The opening night show with the BFA got underway with a crisp clean presentation number featuring five male dancers with a tasteful upbeat choreography. Next up, alegrías. But alegrías alegrías, in the most classical Seville style. In fact, it appeared on the program as a “tribute to the Seville school dedicated to Matilde Coral”. Five extra-long pale blue batas de cola worn by five women with five large shawls, cante, rhythm and guitar… And just when you’re thinking it can’t get any better, Pastora Galván arrives on stage similarly dressed but in a contrasting color. Flamenco earth mother, seductress, innocent and guilty all at once. If the colorful costumes are a banquet for eyes accustomed in other works to black on black, Pastora’s dancing is equally invigorating. A sort of mining fantasy is a beautiful sentimental pas de deux to free-form compás interpreted by soloists Patricia Guerrero and Eduardo Leal. Upon Pastora’s return, she goes about intelligently broadening the vocabulary of bulerías to a swaying compás, elevating this form to greater importance than it’s previously had. Tangos with the whole group dressed as Granada gypsies, and once again we’re treated to Pastora’s generous originality and spontaneity. Then suddenly…an unexpected intermission. When the curtain goes up again, the Orchestra of Córdoba settles in and we enter into a parallel universe where you see the same faces and bodies on stage, but the magic is gone. Sometimes the ideas that look best on paper, don’t produce the expected results when carried out. According to the press release, Rubén Olmo intended “Metáfora” to be a look at flamenco and its relationship with bolero school and modern dance. In my opinion, what he has managed to demonstrate, beyond any reasonable doubt, is that folk, bolero and contemporary dance, despite sharing some common roots with flamenco, can’t possibly compete with it. This is why, for decades, Spanish dance companies would do a first part with varied folkloric and semi-classical dances, and a second part in which flamenco was offered: cante, dance and guitar. Come to think of it, “Metáfora” would have gained a great deal of coherence by simply changing the first part for the second. Rubén’s solo dance teeter-tottered on the brink of terminal sweetness, the following group dance was flat and boring, the very creative Rocío Molina struggled in vain to find meaning in the dull music she had to dance to, a folk dance in the jota vein was…strange…and an ending with the entire company was hopelessly flawed in concept. Give me Pastora Galván any day, and I’ll have a side order of singer Fabiola and guitarist David Carmona.
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