All the information IX Festival de Jerez

Antonio Canales, Lola Greco, Diego Llori
“Carmen, Carmela”
Tuesday, March 1st, 2005. 9:00pm Teatro Villamarta, Jerez

Rocío Molina “Entre paredes”
Tuesday, March 1st, 2005. 7:00pm. Sala la Compañía, Jerez

“Carmen, Carmela”. Dance: Antonio Canales, Lola Greco, Diego Llori. Guitar: Daniel Méndez, Paco Iglesias. Cante: Herminia Borja, José Valencia. Sound track: guitar, Juan Víctor Rodríguez Yagüe, José Antonio Rodríguez, Niño de Pura, Serafín Arriaza. Flute: Luis Orden. Percussion: Pedro Vicedo. Bass: Manuel Marbizón. Chorus: Teatro Maestranza de Sevilla. Choreography: Antonio Canales. Musical adaptation: Juan Víctor Rodríguez Yagüe.

“Entre paredes”. Dance: Rocío Molina. Cante: Rafael Jiménez “Falo”, David Lagos. Guitar: Paco Cruz, Manuel Cazás. Percussion: Sergio Martínez. Double bass: Miguel Rodrigáñez.

Text: Estela Zatania

The need to take risks…the rejection of banality

Guitarist Javier Patino and singer Rocío Bazán opened the fifth day of the Festival de Jerez in the intimate setting of the Villavicencio palace, and both young artists demonstrated that good, solid flamenco will be around for some time yet. It would be nice if future editions of the festival might expand this part of the program to include more acoustic recitals in small venues of “cante with guitar” as it’s now called, by young artists.

At the Villamarta theater Antonio Canales presented his most recent work, “Carmen, Carmela”, the title reflecting that the show is based on Merimeè’s classic story using the idiom of Spanish and flamenco dance: at the previous day’s press conference Canales explained that the nickname for Carmen in Andalusía is “Carmela”.

Photo: Luis Malibrán

You get used to approaching a Canales show with your fingers crossed behind your back. Like many artistic geniuses, he is an uneven artist: spontaneous creativity is not usually characterized by consistency. Great successes and great failures are the mark of authenticity of the artist with something to say and who is not content to repeat formulas that worked in the past. The need to take risks, and the rejection of banality are the two faces of the coin Canales traffics in.

There are but three dancers in this show: Canales, Lola Greco and Diego Llori. And it’s quite enough because this limited staff does what multitudinous groups have been unable to do even with fat budgets: put on a well-constructed, interesting and entertaining show that is very Spanish and very flamenco. Canales’ gut-wrenching cry of “Caaarmeeen!”, like a Spanish Brando crying “Steeellaaa!” in “A Streetcar Named Desire” gets the action going and broadcasts that we’re about to see a Canales in the interpretative facet he commands so well. If at Seville’s last Bienal we saw a tired, aging dancer, here he has bounced back into the groove and is right at home.

Singers Herminia Borja with her warm, roughed-up voice, and José Valencia with his aggressive, young and very flamenco one, show how important it is to have good cante

The music weaves guitar music with Bizet’s score, managing to avoice the obvious pitfalls such an undertaking implies, and theatrical scenes are alternated with dance with equal ease. Kudos to director Miguel Narros who has achieved a vivid production of a classic story that has had enough reincarnations to make yet another dangerously superfluous.

Lola Greco is magnificent, fascinating...if María Pagés is all arms, this lady is all legs, and she does impossible things with them. Someone had the naughty idea of having her do one dance in skimpy, black undergarments, and it was a flash of genius carried off with impeccably good taste. Greco interprets another dance smoking a cigarette bringing back images of Marlene Dietrich, and her expressive eyes project all the way to the last row. She also interprets some purely classical dances showing off her admirable preparation.

Diego Llori does a fine job, managing to hold his own with farruca and siguiriya without getting lost in the outsized shadows of his two colleagues. Singers Herminia Borja with her warm, roughed-up voice, and José Valencia with his aggressive, young and very flamenco one, show how important it is to have good cante – without them the show would have been considerably diminished.

A long time ago Antonio Canales acquired a state of grace with this reviewer which makes everything he does appear to radiate genius, even at his worst moments. In Carmen, Carmela the dancer has many good moments without reaching the full potential of his abilities. But any possible flaw in his dancing is more than compensated by the sheer force of his artistic personality which is convincing even in the most dramatic sequences.

Rocio Molina (photo: © Javier Suarez)

If the Festival de Jerez gave a prize for “best newcomer”, dancer Rocío Molina (Málaga, 1984) would have won it handily on Monday with her performance at the Sala la Compañía. She makes reviewers scramble to find praiseful adjectives that haven’t been worn out on other artists. Without a doubt she is original, and it’s not common to find so much personality in one so young. Malagueña leads into tangos del Piyayo, guajira, soleá...but the forms are the least of it because this girl is quite a dancer, an artist still in the making and already she displays more integrity and inspiration than some prominent stars.

With a curvilinear body straight out of a Rubens painting (she needs a more flattering wardrobe), Rocío demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to stir emotions by juxtaposing opposites: she executes some of the most sensual, subtle and seductive moves seen in flamenco dance, but if you blink, suddenly she’s cold, hard steel. There are moments of humor and irony, even parody and caricature of hackneyed steps carried over the top, and occasionally the dancer goes into a nearly religious state of ecstasy which is as fascinating as it is unsettling. Command, good taste, intelligence and an infallible compás backed up by her natural strength make Rocío Molina an important figure in the current panorama of young flamenco dancers.