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.

Manolo Sanlúcar con Carmen Linares 'Locura de brisa y trino'

Manolo Sanlúcar 'Tauromagia'

El Pele & Vicente Amigo 'Canto'