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SPECIAL REPORT: BIENAL DE FLAMENCO DE SEVILLA 2008 Text: Juan Diego Martín Cabeza It’s funny to see how the Giraldillo prizes have developed over the thirty year history of the festival. The first Giraldillos had a transcendent honorific halo for flamenco artists linked to the tradition, and upon whom the weight of responsibility was somehow deposited. Calixto Sánchez in cante, Manolo Franco in guitar, or Mario Maya himself, in dance. Later on, the format changed with the clear intention of rewarding young artists, but various types of pressure, outside interests, and the difficulty of combining a festival and a contest, did away with that as well. What we have now, is a glamour-fest, a television-ready show, an advertisement-reminder of the Bienal six months after its closing…or a harbinger of the Bienal to come.
These ceremonies, fashioned after the Oscars, are great for TV. We won’t go into that, because I understand these “happenings” somehow help promote flamenco. A kind of flamenco without flamenco. A flamenco of familiar faces and words of gratitude. They tried to make it dynamic, and the presence of journalist Teo Sánchez to present the affair gave more credibility than you would have thought. Prizes which are well-deserved, but highly forgettable. In a couple of years, no one will remember who won which prize in the Bienal of 2008. Nor is there any need to. The event ended around 11 PM, without anyone mentioning what was to happen next, which was the tribute to Mario Maya. It seems unfair to relegate such a fine show to the background in order to highlight protocol and photo-ops. It was 1 AM when the final curtain fell at the Lope de Vega theater, and everyone was just about at the limit. Let’s hope this show can be seen again in Seville, and someone has the good sense to program it at a more civilized hour.
What we saw in the show was in some ways the history of flamenco dance, the history of flamenco theater, of an aesthetic, of a philosophy… What we saw was an example of how a tribute should be. Less talk, more hands-on action. Less improvisation, and more hard work. It was a retrospective exposition of Mario Maya, made with love, with respect, with good taste and professionalism. For young flamenco fans, it was a chance to appreciate moving choreographies we’d only been able to see on video. I now realize I’d been too hard on group choreographies. All that posing and mirror-image posturing always seemed boring. But this show had nothing to do with that. What a talent for filling the stage, what a sense of rhythm in the transitions, what discipline and what freedom of expression! Most interesting was seeing that the tribute was supported by a generation of young artists who, each one in his or her own way, is making inroads in creative flamenco dance. There are wonderful moments, such as the trio of Isabel Bayón, Belén Maya and Rafaela Carrasco, then, with each one on her own. The group of male dancers is tight and disciplined, the guitarists and singers play a fundamental part. Good voices, good music, good transitions overall. This is an admirable group effort, one in which there was no place for stars or competitiveness. A sincere and straightforward tribute to Mario Maya that became a tribute to all flamenco, past, present and future.
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