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XI FESTIVAL DE JEREZ
Úrsula López
Sala La Compañía. 7:00pm
Dance: Úrsula López, Mariano Bernal, Tamara López. Guitar: Patino, Dani Méndez. Cante: Pepe de Pura, David Lagos, Jeromo Segura. Percussion: Raúl Domínguez.
The first show on Tuesday at the Festival de Jerez was at the Sala La Compañía with Úrsula López as part of the series called “De la Frontera” which features contemporary or experimental recitals, and young hopefuls. This young woman born in Algeciras and who lives in Córdoba is a veteran of the Compañía Andaluza de Danza,as well as the companies of Manolete, Rafael Campallo, Javier Latorre, Yerbabuena, Javier Barón, José Antonio, Andrés Marín and the Ballet Nacional de España among others. Her training therefore is impeccable and in fact, she’s got all the right ingredients, including placement, discipline, a sculptural form and classic Picasso-esque features to round out the look.
All the ingredients, but she’s missing the recipe. Few people realize that a failed dance project has taken the same hard work, or more, than one which hits the mark, so we must recognize in this dancer the countless hours and years of sacrifice and her sincere dedication to dance. But the stage is unforgiving, and the dancer is neither convincing nor charismatic. Perhaps if she had placed her bets on conventional flamenco, in particular, had she allowed more cante, the show might have come off better, because only in the alegrías, choreographed in the standard manner, do we glimpse the makings of a great artist. With the splendid voices of David Lagos and Pepe de Pura at her service, it was unwise to risk so much.
Rocío Molina “Almario”
Teatro Villamarta
Dance: Rocío Molina. Cante: José Valencia, Antonio Campos. Guitar: Francisco Cruz, Juan Requena. Percussion: Antonio Coronel, Sergio Martínez.Palmas: Guadalupe Torres, Popi.
Text: Estela Zatania
Photos: Paco Sánchez
It was a pity the Villamarta theater didn’t fill up for what was possibly the best show of the festival so far this year. Málaga dancer Rocío Molina, the child prodigy who at 23 still has a chubby baby face, tied loose ends together and constructed what may turn out to be her definitive artistic personality.
A few years ago at La Unión she didn’t make it to the semifinals, but many of us sat up and took note of her unusual style.She got the last laugh just a few months later when at 19 she was soloist with the Flamenco Festival USA along with Manuela Carrasco and Chocolate, and as Israel Galván’s partner no less.At the 2005 Festival de Jerez she drove the audience wild (literally – certain words can’t be used capriciously) at the Sala La Compañía with an extraordinary solo recital, but towards the end of that same year we saw a watered-down, standardized Rocío Molina in an unfortunate overly-contrived work that was presented at Málaga en Flamenco.At that point it seemed we’d lost the most promising dancer of recent years.
But no.“Almario” is a nearly perfect show in which the young woman recuperates her true personality and puts things in order with her intelligence, creativity and absolute fearlessness.The setting is that new thing they’re doing with a fictitious dressing-room right on stage where the artist dresses and primps and preens in full view of the audience.For the first dance, a taranto, Rocío wears street clothes: a leather suit with a short tight skirt, high boots and her long hair loose, and looks like any young woman on her way to do some shopping.With the sheer force of her personality the dancer obliges us to believe in her vision from the first moment.In fact, the unconventional wardrobe focuses your attention on the dancing itself.
Creating a school right before our very eyes
She returns to the “dressing-room”, pins up her hair, takes off her boots and leather suit and ends up in a black body-suit and high heels: the erotic implication is unmistakable, but tastefully constructed.With a great deal of ceremony she puts on a black bata de cola, and the costume change comes off as another choreography instead of having to resort to the typical guitar or cante solo to cover such moments.
“A clavito y canela hueles tú a mí”, the excellent Granada singer Antonio Campos cries out with the famous siguiriya verse and Rocío responds with her calm and classic dance. After another costume change, Rocío delights us with a tanguillo in the very oldest style – she has an amazing capacity to capture and reproduce the essence of a diversity of styles and eras.Another public costume change, and she ends up in a red velvet dress with an enormous Spanish shawl for the second dance to “bamberas” of the day, astonishing considering this is a practically obsolete cante form,A circle forms for bulerías, and when José Valencia belts out “Fragua, yunque y martillo funden los metales...”, Rocío ratchets up the intensity and lets loose all the force of her surprising genius with absolutely original moves, creating a school right before our eyes.
The show ends with Rocío in her pretend dressing-room where she puts her street clothes and boots back on, picks up her designer bag and struts off. And I have nothing else to declare, the girl was good enough to eat (as the saying goes) and a new era in women’s flamenco dance has been inaugurated.
La Macanita
Bodega Los Apóstoles. 12 midnight
Cante: Tomasa Guerrero “La Macanita”. Guitar: Manuel Parrilla. Palmas: Chícharo, Gregorio.
Straight back to the roots via express with the rich warm voice of La Macanita at the bodega Los Apóstoles where the complimentary glass of sherry and the unmistakable aroma of a Jerez wine-cellar situate you psychologically long before the show begins.
At nearly 40, Macanita continues to be everyone’s favorite girl in Jerez, the same one that stole our hearts at barely 5, singing and dancing in an episode of Rito y Geografía del Cante.She’s not long on repertoire, but as happens with singers limited in this way, her cante is multidimensional, a mirror of life experiences that precisely her generation was the last to know. In her flamenco voice are mixed multiple flavors and sounds – Paquera, la Perla, the Santiago neighborhood – in a rich auditive stew that gives testimony to the flamenco that was, and continues to be.
Dressed in an extravagant print skirt with a thousand little ruffles, and a hot pink blouse, she warmed up “por medio” in those tones where the guitar declares its most flamenco identity. With a few voice problems, nothing serious, she sang tientos tangos with classic verses and melodies, and a wonderful feeling for earlier times. Soleá was taken at a clip, as is the custom in Utrera in whose cante she finds so much inspiration.We’re a bit tired of the bulería song “El Corazón tras la Puerta”, although it still sounds good.In malagueña, she reigns in her voice to great effect, but then the tone of the alegrías and cantiñas is too high and she forces her voice. Very Jerez-sounding siguiriyas, bulerías with a little dancing, the same as always, as never, the eternal flamenco that gets reinvented again and again thanks to earthy artists like Tomasa la Macanita.
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