Por cuatro reales. Dance: Andrés Peña y Pilar Ogalla. Voice: Miguel Soto ‘El Londro’. David Carpio. Special collaboration in guitar: Pascual de Lorca, Rafael Rodríguez, Miguel Pérez, Jesús Guerrero. Festival Flamenco de Jerez. Teatro Villamarta. Sunday, March 1st, 2020. Full house.
At a time when flamenco dance shows are focusing on lofty concepts, staging, elaborate choreographies and artists’ exhibitionism, Andrés Peña and Pilar Ogalla came to the Villamarta to defend the importance of the guitar and remind the audience that you don’t dance the same looking at yourself as when you’re listening to someone else.
In this way, with a simple stage set lacking in pretense, the dancers gave a lesson in generosity, putting their bodies and their emotions at the service of the four guitarists who have accompanied them throughout their career. Not only giving them the spotlight and allowing them to play freely (something you see less all the time in dance accompaniment), but inviting them, via their compositions and their playing, to choreograph the movements.
In this sense, the six strings (times four) were the focal point of the work and the element of inspiration that allowed the artists to move from the Templanza if Rafael Rodríguez, who once again thrilled the audience with his personality and sensitivity in the zambra and tientos tangos, and the Nobleza of the bulería por soleá and the milonga of Pascual de Lorca. In addition to Lealtad and the force of the tremolo of a superb Miguel Pérez as well as the Valor of an energetic Jesús Guerrero who was also in charge of the music direction.
Four solid guitarists for Ogalla and Peña to grab onto, and a beautiful closing in which the guitars were the guides, the helping hand than pushes when necessary (the polo of Guerrero), that embraces (the tangos of Rodríguez), that accompanies (the fandangos of Pascual de Lorca) or stirs you up (the abandolao of Pérez).
As for the rest, in dance, Ogalla was outstanding in her natural quality and the solidity of her movement, and Peña, his habitual elegance, temperament and dignity. Taking their time, sober and even dry, also making the observer stop and take note of the details. And that we enjoyed, although there were times when the rhythm faltered and we would have preferred they had stepped outside the ochre picture-postcard that envelopes their dancing and add, from whom they now are, a new color to their universe.
