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Juan Peña “El Lebrijano”. Guitar: Pedro María Peña. Percussion: Tete Peña. Chorus: Juan Reina, Rosario Amador.
Milagros Mengíbar: Cante: Juan Reina, Manolo Sevilla. Guitar: Rafael Rodríguez.
Paco Cepero: Second guitar: José Ignacio Franco, Miguel Salado. Cante: Elu de Jerez. Dance: Irene Carrasco, Juan Antonio Tejero. Percusión: Carlos Merino. Palmas: Luis y Ali de la Tota.

Text & photos: Estela Zatania

Closing night of the Festival de Jerez 2005. At the last minute Bernarda de Utrera calls in sick and has to be substituted by Juan Peña “El Lebrijano” on a program that includes veterans of cante, dance and guitar.

The formal elegance of the Seville school

Milagros Mengíbar opens the evening with petenera. The lady from Triana who thirty years ago won the “Encarnación López La Argentinita” dance prize at Córdoba’s Concurso Nacional de Arte Flamenco, appears in a turquoise blue bata de cola with an embroidered shawl, her hair in a meticulous bun, discreet make-up and coral earrings. This is the formal elegance that characterizes the Seville school as defined for an entire generation by Matilde Coral. In addition to physical appearance, it is a concept of women’s flamenco dance that is discreet and restrained, depending almost exclusively on precious hand and arm movements, and a minimum of footwork and acceleration – the most eloquent visual expression of the philosophy “less is more”, and the antithesis of contemporary flamenco dance centered on footwork, velocity and what some traditional dancers call “karate moves”.

The ‘bata de cola’ is a basic element for Mengíbar, and she uses it with assurance and command. Her regular singer Juan Reina was less worthy of praise with a profusion of inappropriate half-notes than trivialized the melodies, and an excess of choreographed caresses between the dancer and singer, something that has little to do with the minimalism that normally characterizes the Sevilla school, subtracted dignity from this elegant woman’s dance.

King of the golden age of the festivals of the seventies

With his trademark “trueeeena” Juan Peña “El Lebrijano” opened his performance accompanied on the guitar by his nephew Pedro María Peña who is becoming an outstanding cante accompanist, peppering his traditional style with modern details in just the right measure. The audience reception is warm, especially considering that most people came expecting to find Bernarda de Utrera whose absence is not mentioned. This singer is capable of offering high quality flamenco singing but instead opted for his “derivative” repertoire which left no one happy. His voice didn’t come together either, and only in the final bulerías, so different from Jerez style, employing modulations, pieces of popular song and tongue-twisters, did we get a glimpse of the singer who used to be the king of the golden age of the festivals of the seventies.

Milagros Mengíbar returns with a white bata de cola trimmed in red, and half a rosemary bush decorating her coiffure. We hear the “tirititrán” of alegraís and the dancer gives another ‘class’ in correct handling of the bata de cola. Once again her restrained, quiet stately and very Andalusian style dignifies a dance we’ve seen so mistreated in some recent works.

The unmistakable Cepero sound

Francisco López Cepero, good ol’ Paco Cepero, Medalla de las Bellas Artes in 2004 and lifetime guitar worker, was in charge of the second part of the program and, in effect, the closure of the festival. The maestro presented his regular format of recent years with second guitars José Ignacio Franco and Miguel Salado and the ‘decorative’ dancing of Irene Carrasco and Juan Antonio Tejero. The voice of Elu de Jerez was also included for brief moments of cante that seemed like lost orphans. The long recital, excessively long for some, was based on bulerías, tanguillo, guajiras, rumba, colombianas, siguiriyas and tangos among other themes, with the unmistakable Cepero sound, his eloquent silences and his most representative variations, stylized and minimalized.

Overall, there was a somewhat deficient sound system, and lots of down-time between one number and the next made for an impatient audience. More worrisome, just now when the most avant-garde contingent is looking for anything to criticize in classical flamenco and defends aggressive evolution, is the fact that three respected veterans given the responsibility of closing out this important festival, were unable to connect convincingly with the audience despite having provided dignified performances. Theirs was the task of demonstrating that experimentalism does not compare favorably to traditional flamenco, but the mission was not accomplished.

Lebrijano "Me llamo Juan"

Lebrijano "con Manolo Sanlúcar y Pedro Peña"

Paco Cepero "Corazón y bordón"

Paco Cepero & Nano de Jerez DVD