Angelita Gómez. “Ayer y siempre” Villamarta Theater, Jerez de la Frontera. Wednesday, March 9th, 2004. 9:00pm

Dance: Angelita Gómez, María del Mar Moreno, Pepa Montes. Cante: Melchora Ortega, Fernando Terremoto, Antonio Malena, Luis Moneo, Luis de Pacote, Segundo Falcón, Enrique Soto. Guitar: Domingo Rubichi, Santiago Moreno, Ricardo Miño, Pascual de Lorca. Piano: Pedro Ricardo Miño. Percussion: Antonio Barrul. Palmas: Bobote, El Eléctrico.

If the Festival de Jerez opened with the town’s most popular dancer, Antonio el Pipa, the closing night was equally Jerez-oriented: a sentimental journey and tribute to dance teacher Angelita Gómez, an institution in Jerez.

Throughout the festival Angelita, who turns 60 this year and has been teaching for decades in her own studio, offered her workshop of bulería de Jerez. The chance to see the person responsible for forming stars like María del Mar Moreno, María José Franco or Pipa himself, perform on stage, was an interesting proposition in itself although, as the maestra said in her press conference, “dancing on stage isn’t the same thing as teaching”.

But we hadn’t come to criticize, but rather to support and encourage the teacher and all the people she had chosen to surround herself with for sentimental reasons, such as Fernando Terremoto, María del Mar Moreno, Pepa Montes or Melchora Ortega among others.

The chance to see the person responsible
for forming stars like María del Mar Moreno,
María José Franco or Pipa himself, perform on stage

One of the most interesting numbers was the first, a polo, danced by Angelita and sung by Melchora Ortega whose dynamic youthful voice lent new life to this rarely heard, and even more rarely danced form. Looks like it’s official, nearly forgotten forms of the flamenco repertoire are being recuperated after falling into disuse starting around the nineteen-eighties when everything turned into a variation on soleá por bulería. The ingenious placement of mirrors fueled the nostalgic feeling and added light and dimension.

After a dance by María del Mar Moreno, and corridos by Luis de Pacote and Luis Moneo, Ricardo Miño, his wife, dancer Pepa Montes and their son pianist Pedro Ricardo Miño offered a long recital within a recital that started off well with Pepa’s alegrías, but overstayed it’s welcome with a piano solo and some tangos that ended the first part.

A ‘romance’ danced by Angelita and María del Mar represented the passing of the torch, from one generation to the next, by means of a long red ruffle that María pulled from Angelita’s dress, an unfortunate contrivance. The audiovisual touch that brought images of water and of Angelita as a young girl managed to avoid being cloying and added interest.

Melchora Ortega returned to offer her lovely tientos wrapped up with a touch of zambra inspired in Caracol, and it was impossible not to recall Terremoto senior when his son Fernando came out to sing for Angelita’s siguiriya that led to a fiesta finale in which all the artists participated including the group from the peña Fernando Terremoto.

Melchora Ortega

Text : Estela Zatania

Theater Villamarta Program
De Peña en Peña Program: Trasnoches, De Peñas, Peña de Guardia
Other shows(Gloria Pura, Bordón y cuenta nueva, De la Frontera, Café Cantante, Sólos en Compañía)
Courses and workshops

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