IX Festival Internacional de Jerez 2005. Manolo Sanlúcar. 'tres momentos para un concierto'. Juan de Juan. Javier Barón 'notas al pie'

Manolo
Sanlúcar “Tres momentos para un concierto”
Compañía Javier Barón “Notas al
pie”
Sunday, February 27, 2005. 9:30pm Teatro Villamarta, Jerez.

“Tres momentos para un concierto”. Guitar
and music director: Manolo Sanlúcar. Second guitar:
Santiago Lara. Cante: Carmen Grilo. Percussion: Francisco
González “Paquito”, Jorque Aguilar. Music:
Manolo Sanlúcar.

“Notas al pie”. Dance: Javier Barón,
Isabel Bayón. Cante: Juan José Amador, Pepe
de Pura. Guitar: Javier Patino, Juan Diego Mateos. Percussion:
Juan Ruiz. Violin: Alexis Lefevre.

All the information IX
Festival de Jerez

Text: Estela Zatania

Juan de Juan: more mature and
self-confident

The
offering on this third day of the Festival de Jerez was interesting
and varied. At the Sala la Compañía, and within
the series “Los Novísimos” devoted to young
dancers, there was a packed house for Juan de Juan, the young
man who was Antonio Canales’ star dancer for years and
recently struck out on his own causing his already considerable
fame to grow. Morón de la Frontera, the dancer’s
birthplace, is a guitar town, but there it also tends to turn
out fine dancers – Juana Amaya for example, who was
one of Juan’s teachers.

With the guitar of Jesús del Rosario and the voice,
not announced on the program but very welcome, of Guadiana,
Juan de Juan was more mature and self-confident than we remember
seeing him, although he still needs to tone down somewhat
and administer his abundant energy – where others want
to arrive but fall short, this dancer arrives handily and
just keeps going. The strong influence of Canales is clear,
but also the artistic admiration for Farruquito, and the combination
of the latter’s compás and gypsy dynamic with
the former’s interpretative ability and touch of madness
makes Juan de Juan unique in the current flamenco dance scene.

Sanlúcar: a sense of artistic
curiosity and discovery

Manolo Sanlúcar earned his place of honor long ago.
And he no longer has to worry about maintaining it, because
his status as musical genius and virtuoso of the guitar has
acquired permanence. Along with Paco de Lucía he is
a fundamental element of the evolutionary movement in flamenco
guitar that kicked into high gear in the early seventies thanks
to these two maestros.

In this recital, shared with dancer Javier Barón,
the man from Sanlúcar offered a retrospective of the
most representative work of his lengthy career, including
compositions up to 1989, Tauromagia and Locura de Brisa y
Trino.

Manuel Ríos Ruiz talks about the “effortless
fusion” Sanlúcar contributed to flamenco, and
in the Villamarta recital we savored the sense of artistic
curiosity and discovery always present in this guitarist’s
work. The maestro spoke at length between pieces, remembering
anecdotes or commenting on the compositions. He tells us that
“Pastora Pavón ‘La Niña de los Peines’
was my artistic mentor” and cites Manuel de Falla: “Music
is not to be understood, but to be felt”, a clear reference
to those who have expressed doubts about the experimental
tendencies in flamenco.

After a classic arrangement of alegrías – despite
the contemporary nature of Sanlúcar’s music,
the guitarist tends to avoid the alternative tunings that
have become so fashionable, and no matter how many unusual
chords he uses, flamenco and its compás are always
the glue that holds everything together – singer Carmen
Grilo takes her place on stage to interpret “Locura
de brisa y trino”.

The recital ends with a piece not announced on the program,
“La danza de los pavos”, a song to the compás
of alegrías which takes its name from a painting by
the Andalusian artist Baldomero Romero Ressendi which was
the inspiration for Sanlúcar’s upcoming recording.

Javier Barón: masculine
with no unnecessary expenditure of testosterone

After
intermission the lights dimmed and Javier Barón’s
musicians appeared on stage one by one, in almost haphazard
fashion, as if arriving at a rehearsal. It’s a beginning
the Seville dancer has used on other occasions and which expresses
his desire to avoid all pretense and superficiality. Barón
appears front and center and stands stock still for several
minutes beneath an overhead spot…the same “choreography”
employed by Eva Yerbabuena to close her most recent work “A
cuatro voces”. One of the pitfalls of rejecting superficiality
is falling into existential excess. But we want to forgive
everything this man does with such respect, integrity and
natural grace.

The group consists of two guitarists, two singers, percussionist
and violin, in addition to the noteworthy collaboration of
dancer Isabel Bayón whose dry, geometric style acquires
a certain warmth with Barón, without altering her unusual
perspective. Normally flamenco dance, as well as singing and
guitar-playing, is diminished in reverse ratio according to
the number of people interpreting a given activity, because
flamenco is constructed as a uni-personal endeavor, but Javier
and Isabel have a convincing symbiosis, aside from the fact
that they also dance solo numbers.

Isabel dances the malagueña of Mellizo to introduce
a jaleo extremeño. The first time I saw a free-rhythm
cante danced was in 1964 when Manuela Vargas mounted a choreography
to Pastora Pavón’s petenera which has no fixed
rhythm, and in the years since, many dancers have introduced
standard rhythmic petenera in this way. Dance without fixed
rhythm tends to quickly go out of character or degenerate
into silent film gestures, so it’s unlikely this will
be a lasting fad, or so we hope.

A beautiful violin introduction leads us into Javier’s
soleá por bulería. His is a sober, straightforward
style, masculine without any unnecessary expenditure of testosterone
that so many lesser beings rely on for easy applause. This
dancer begins each performance from square one and sets out
to win over the audience by sheer creative force. The first
numbers typically bring only polite, reserved applause, but
Barón gets under your skin and soon people are jumping
out of their sets. And so it was Sunday evening at the Villamarta
theater.

Pele:
a good, solid cante recital

More flamenco, this time with Pele and Manuel Silveria, down
at the Apóstoles wine cellar that quickly filled up
despite the incessant rain. We’re accustomed to seeing
contemporary offerings at the bodega, but the two men from
Córdoba offered a good, solid cante recital that included
soleá, siguiriya, a Caracol zambra, alegrías,
bulerías and tonás. The singer was in excellent
form and seemed at ease. After the last cante, the rain, stronger
now, didn’t stop those who continued on to the Peña
Pescaera for the last sherry of the night and the show of
La Rubia’s group.