All the information IX Festival de Jerez

“My take, my vision and the freedom to express my own concepts”

At forty years old José Antonio Rodríguez cannot be considered a newcomer. All the same he belongs to the guitar generation that felt the first impact of Paco de Lucía, and his playing style is squarely in the new era of flamenco guitar. Clean technique and great musicality, tempered by a contemporary artistic sensibility. This is the legacy of Paco through guitarists like Rodríguez whose recital on Wednesday at the Sala la Compañía opened the sixth day of this edition of the Festival de Jerez.

At the Villamarta Theater Seville dancer Rafaela Carrasco premiered her work “Una mirada del flamenco” [A take on flamenco]. Both the title and the artist’s declarations that appear in the program leave no room for doubt about the intent: “My take, my vision and the freedom to express my own concepts”. This woman’s integrity is her most identifying characteristic and her vision is towards modern dance.

The discreet button earrings, the hair knotted into a perfect French twist that would rival Audrey Hepburn’s, a rigorously international sensibility (as opposed to Spanish or Andalusian) and a generous dose of glamour make this woman far more popular abroad than in her own country, and this was reflected in the makeup of the audience that turned out to see her. Aside from the obviously foreign faces, and the diverse snippets of languages to be heard before and after the performance, each dance was following by enthusiastic whooping, a show of appreciation that has become fashionable in a number of countries, not including Spain, and more revealing, the final applause was accompanied by rhythmic clapping, not in threes as we’re accustomed to hearing, but in twos, like pop music. Rafaela has her diehard audience, and they’re not Spaniards. The question that looms then is, in a festival of Spanish and flamenco dance, what does this show have that foreigners love it so much, and Spaniards do not?

And there’s no easy answer, because in these times of experimentalism in flamenco, we’re daily obliged to question the parameters that define flamenco. Just when you think the incorporation of instruments other than guitar takes away flamenconess, someone comes along using a jembé or a violin and the cante or dance comes off as very flamenco. So you say no, it must have to do with certain forms or customs, but along comes someone else and once again you are forced to analyze what you previously thought.

The looming question is, in a festival of Spanish and flamenco dance, what does this show have that foreigners love so much, and Spaniards do not?

Or sometimes it works in reverse. You attend a show like “Una mirada del flamenco” which has all the elements you would normally associate with flamenco, but the resulting product doesn’t come off as flamenco, despite its artistic quality. It’s not that Rafael Carrasco makes use of elements that are not normally associated with flamenco, but that she turns flamenco into modern dance. Although she works within the rhythms of flamenco and depends on footwork, footwork and more footwork – a common excess many very flamenco dancers resort to – her geometric postures, raised shoulders and Martha Graham contractions are elements straight from the realm of standard contemporary dance. Like other recent shows, cante is not a central part of this work, and perhaps most annoying of all, there is a permanent sense of coldness.

The novelty (not so novel) of putting men in ‘bata de cola’ (the skirts with long trains), comes off more as a declaration of independence than a creative necessity. Writer and columnist Azorín once said, “New things aren’t good by mere virtue of their newness – new things are good only when they are better than what came before”. Men’s flamenco dance was not enriched with this number which was nothing more than a standard farruca danced by three men who happened to be wearing bata de cola.

Rafaela’s malagueña that was such a hit at the festival two years ago is repeated here, this time causing no particular stir. Other numbers include the bulerías presentation (footwork, footwork and more footwork), taranto and martinete, all in the same cerebral futuristic line, relying little on the human voice. Rafaela deserves our respect for questioning the limits and taking risks. She has enjoyed the liberty she so fervently seeks to express her own concept, and has shown us her “mirada”. What’s not clear is where that vision is heading, and whether it has something positive to add to Spanish and flamenco dance.