Arcángel and José Antonio. «Paseo por el Amor y la Muerte»

Text: Pablo San Nicasio
Photos & video: Rafael Manjavacas

July 16th – Jardines de Sabatini – Veranos de la Villa

PENITENCE AND CATHARSIS OF THE ‘DUENDE’

Dance: Fernando Romero. Guest artist: José Antonio
Singers: Miguel Ortega y Arcángel.
Artistic director: Pepa Gamboa

Dante described the Inferno with a sort of relish.  Its inhabitants and landscape.  The hierarchy of the various circles, and the deeds and sins of those who arrived at each level.  All with the intuition of a universal genius in a work which today has reached us in clearly written descriptions of what Limbo is, or Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth…it’s all there.

Fernando Romero, along with flamenco heavyweights, based this work on that of the illustrious Italian writer.

An impressive undertaking that goes from nothing to everything in just over an hour.  From absolute pessimism and desolation in the face of an idea that promises to be of difficult interpretation (especially in flamenco), to the crystalline luminosity of collective understanding and agreement.

The idea  is based on a collage with a message.  While Dante’s literature and story are put to the music of maestros John Cage, Toru Takemitsu and Yoritsune Matsudaira, the flamenco counterpart is set to recordings of veteran singers, and the live voices of younger ones.  With no confusion.  Everything in its place.

And it’s an idea of very complex dance execution, which is equally complex for the singers.

With director Fernando Romero whom we hereby nominate for an Oscar for the best dance actor, (he’s already been honored several times over for his choreographic skills), the dance area is completed with Jose Antonio, Virgilian maestro and guide, who leads the sinner in his descent into hell.  The musical context is at first very arid for someone unfamiliar with the aesthetic avant-garde of the last century, but otherwise understandable.  Interwoven segments of musical recordings and interviews with great stars of flamenco singing such as Vallejo, Carbonerillo, Pastora, Pinini, Caracol, Mairena…and a common ground: the arrogance of the flamenco concept, pessimism and self-assessment as the great sins.

Because to show that one golden era follows another, we have singers Arcángel and Miguel Ortega in a well-balanced facing-off.  In all the styles, two non-gypsy singers rendered honors or ironies (we’ll never know which) singing earnestly after the audio samples of Mairena and Caracol, who predicted the end of gypsy singing, or of great artists respectively.  Recordings we all know and which make this show an ode to optimism.  The two singers impose their dignity and base their interpretations on the vast musical work of the greats and their well-known sins, for they too were human.  Guitar in hand and with quite believable accompaniment for each other’s singing.

Fernando Romero has the overwhelming ability to masterfully unify a diversity of dance aesthetics giving just the right accent and timing.

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Arcángel

 

José Antonio