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14th Festival de Jerez 2010
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KAREN LUGO. Cante: Pedro Obregón, Gema Caballero. Guitar: Amir Haddad, Claudio Villanueva. Percussion: Kike Terrón. Choreography: Karen Lugo. Music: Amir Haddad, Claudio Villanueva. Text: Estela Zatania The seventh day of the Festival de Jerez there was a varied program that promised to be interesting. At seven in the evening at the Sala Compañía, within the series “Los Novísimos”, two young dancers with very different approaches shared the venue. In the first part, Mexican Karen Lugo presented a style of flamenco dance you could call “international”, that doesn’t depend on any cultural baggage or knowledge of cante. In fact, it’s a style clearly inspired in modern dance as practiced in the last century: the disconnection and independent movement of the head and extremities giving a breakdance feel. It’s a concept Karen dominates extraordinarily well, although in the first dances it was more like the concept dominating the dancer. Her slim figure poured into tight pants, she was a poem of geometric postures, admirable for what it is, although it’s hard to resist the comparison with rhythmic gymnastics. She ended with soleá, now wearing a dress, and here the young woman’s considerable talent was at the service of art, and the aroma of flamenco filled the theater. Jerez dancer Saray García had the second part of the recital to display her classic concept of flamenco dance. There was insufficient illumination, which has become the rule rather than the exception; the cliché of polkadots has been exchanged for the cliché of blackness. Backed up by seven young singers and guitarists from Jerez, Saray interpreted absolutely traditional alegrías. Perhaps a little too traditional in fact. A round of tonás preludes an academic siguiriyas dance, well executed but with no surprises. How difficult it is to find the happy medium between science fiction and stagnation… SERENATA ANDALUZA. Piano: Mie Matsumura. Dance: Antonio Canales, Leonor Leal. Cante: José Valencia. Guitar: Eugenio Iglesias, Miguel Iglesias. Palmas: Bobote. Original idea and director: Javier Puga. Text: Estela Zatania
At nine o’clock, a piano recital based on compositions by Manuel de Falla, Isaac Albéniz and Enrique Granados was the main offering of the day. A piano recital in a festival of flamenco and Spanish dance? Last night at the Villamarta Theater, that question was hanging in the air for the hour and ten minutes the work of pianist Mie Matsumura lasted. Lacking criteria to judge piano-playing, we can accept the musician’s presence in the festival as an absolute guarantee of her competence and preparation, and I shall limit my comments to observations related to the flamenco elements of the show. One supposes that the inclusion of Antonio Canales, after five years absence from the festival, is in answer to the need to justify this type of program in the Festival de Jerez. In my opinion, the veteran dancer continues to be a top star of dance, one of the greats. An artist’s genius, once demonstrated, cannot be taken away by the natural deterioration of faculties, just as we would not denigrate the reputation of deceased artists. But not even the outsized personality of Canales, who danced por soleá, nor the competent support of young dancer Leonor Leal, were able to inject flamenco into an evening of piano with little or no flamenco energy, despite the interpreters’ best efforts. The most interesting moment was when young singer José Valencia sang cantiñas point-blank, standing alone at the front of the stage. The audience responded accordingly, thrilled by the welcome interjection of a flamenco feeling. JUAN DIEGO Y JORGE GÓMEZ “MIXTOLOBO” Flamenco guitar: Juan Diego; Electric and acoustic guitar: Jorge Gómez; Electric bass: Ignacio Cintado; Percussion: Juan Peña “El Chispa”. Text: Manuel Moraga What a shame the amplification didn’t allow us to enjoy this show to the fullest. Although it would be better to begin this review with the most important thing. Sometimes you have to reset your head to approach certain shows as a “virgin” and avoid comparisons or prejudices, both of which are negative. Well, last night it wouldn’t have been necessary, because this group has very clear ideas about what they’re doing, and their personality goes into every part of it. Juan Diego, as we’ve said many times, is an excellent guitarist who knows how to combine an aggressive Jerez sound with the sweetest creativity, although in my opinion, the electrified sound of his guitar takes away from what he does. Jorge Gomez is an experienced guitarist who has worked mostly in rock music, although he is perfectly versed in flamenco. That harmony between the two comes across on stage. The best sounds of rhythm and blues come through in bulerías, tangos and siguiriyas. Soleá for example – between flamenco and blues – is a memorable piece. Add to this the magnificent work of Ignacio Cintado and El Chispa, and the result is very satisfying and well-rounded. Noteworthy was the singing of…???…that’s what I’d like to know, because the young men doing palmas had some very good cante of soleá and siguiriya. I’d like to know their names, but can’t find them anywhere. The negative aspect, as I mentioned, was the sound. It’s a difficult venue to deal with sound-wise, and more so with drums and electrified instruments. Sometimes the structure and physical characteristics of a space make it nearly impossible to get decent sound. The first pieces were constant suffering, a hodgepodge of non-differentiated sounds. It gradually got better, possibly because we became used to it, or maybe the technicians did some fine-tuning. But the important thing is what happens on stage, and in that sense, the show worked and we hope this group gets more exposure.
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