Flamenco Vivo-RTVE-AADF (Collection of 6 DVDs).
A hedonistic ritual
| JUAN VERGILLOS
Without a doubt the sweetest, most mysterious and extravagant television film footage in the history of flamenco. An authentic folly that was possible, against all odds (remember that this project was originally part of a television program, and the stations were not then, nor are they now, exactly known for their lyrical cultural leanings), thanks to the brave enthusiasm of a man who was responsible for some of the most transcendental contemporary flamenco movements: Ricardo Pachón.
The list of artists alone it would be enough to show the excellence of this work. But the thing is, the series, the images, the music, the dance, the philosophy, the love that went into the series even goes beyond, if possible, that superb collection of talent. Angels come down to earth. It’s an orgy of flamenco art, in which the interpreters are not simply interpreters, but men and women who eat, smoke, enjoy, laugh, kiss and also sing and dance. Maybe the reason for it all is that clarity of vision that comes from a flamenco philosophy which is, after all, elitist, and which the script summarizes with the sentence: “flamenco was born and developed in a thin strip of land that runs parallel to the left bank of the Guadalquivir river, between Seville and Los Puertos. Beyond this territory, everything that flamenco gains in extensión, it loses in depth”. I couldn’t be less in agreement. Due to my first-hand experience, my childhood and adolescence in eastern Andalusia. For the moment, let’s put historic and musicological investigation to one side. In “El Angel” there’s no room for order and serenity, the dry austere approach of Mairena or Chacón. But neither is there any of the melismatic, barroque flamenco which is usually the opposite. The only bible Pachón worships in “El Angel”, is that of the classic mixed rhythm called “amalgama”, the basis for so many flamenco forms. A blind faith that yields excellent results. Each episode is a fiesta. Tangos and bulerías. You don’t know who Tío Juani, Pastora or Pepe de la Calzona are? Then you don’t know what flamenco dance is like in an intimate ambience. The absence of technique compensated by something else, a sort of muscle memory of life experience. A unit of flesh, a brown woman, old and leathery, small and bent. She can’t even stand up unaided by the young people around her. But when they leave her alone in the middle of the circle, what a miracle! What agility, what heavenly grace, what beauty in her dark hands. What sensuality in her wrists and hips. Can you imagine the great Manuela Vargas, possibly the most sensual dancer in history, and who participates in the same fiesta, comes off as a mere athlete by comparison? An 80-year-old angel with youthful memories of love and pleasure and the serpentine movements of lovers stored in her body. The only angel with a sexual identity as Carlos Lencero once said about this series. In the same line, but in another extreme, Alba Molina, with unruly compás, infantile, with her father Manuel accompanying on the guitar. And when she gets up, what worldly knowledge of womanhood in her child’s body! Generations of dark-eyed women with voices of honey! More.We want more. May the party never end. Fernanda de Utrera scolding Paco Valdepeñas, and Camarón smiling because he forgets the words. Juana la del Revuelo with a string of gristle from the stewed partridge she’s munching, and Rafael Amador with glitter on his eyebrow. And of course, Adolfo Amaya, a Spanish version of Mr. Malaprop in person, the one who recruited Dominique Abel for the film about the Tres Mil Viviendas. And the young Diego Amador of 9 or 10 accompanying Maniac on percussion. Another powerful image, truly worthy of Buñuel, is the one that closes the episode devoted to Pata Negra. After strolling through the Tres Mil, the artists and crew go out to the fields for a fiesta. They sacrifice a pig and eat it. And in the closing bit, Raimundo plays bulerías for Bobote’s dancing, using the dead animal’s hoof as a guitar pluck. Pata Negra. Bobote, yes, just like in the series Rito y Geografía del Cante, he does the same astonishing bulería dance he’s been doing since the day he was born. A fine line between music and pseudo anthropology. Because what Pachón loves above all else, is gypsy flamenco. And thus appears the legendary history of this people, and the mythical “genology” (as Rafael Amador would say it), of flamenco. Perhaps it doesn’t conform to documentary standards, but no matter. Because “El Ángel”, with all its anthropolocial gloss, is pure visual poetry. In this sense, the most apparently anthropological chapter, as well as the least gypsy or flamenco, is the most poetic. I’m referring to the documentary about the Rocío. It would be impossible to achieve a higher emotional level. Love of the land, of the animals, of the landscapes, the swamp. Of light and shadow. Of the sea. Of the pot of chick peas and tripe. Of late night and early dawn. Of pure human passion, so beastly, so animal. Of the sun. Of life.
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V. 3 “El Territorio Flamenco”. Camaron, Raimundo Amador, … – |
