Festival Ciutat Flamenco |
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A change of venue, a change of pace The Festival Ciutat Flamenco filled Barcelona’s Mercat de les Flors with good and original ideas that showed the Catalonian capital is the perfect place to experiment with futuristic flamenco. Text: Silvia Cruz If there’s any place an artist can do experimental work, that place is Barcelona. And not because “anything goes” up here, which is what it may appear at times, but because the locals open their minds and listen to outsiders. It’s true that Barcelona is a cold audience, the kind that makes artists sweat blood, but equally true is the fact that once they’re convinced the person performing is absolutely serious, they surrender openly and forever. A good example of this was the Festival Ciutat Flamenco, formerly Ciutat Vella, which changed name, venue and philosophy for this edition. It was celebrated in the Mercat de les Flors, a perfect place in which there was a little of everything, and all of high quality. Arcángel and La Tremendita, artistically generous Rosario la Tremendita came with Mohammad Motamedi and showed she not only sings whatever she wants, but is also a generous artist like few others. She went out of her way to attend to her guest artist who managed, for a moment, to make us believe we were in the Alhambra of centuries ago, with that peculiar warbling that goes in and out, almost the opposite of what Rosario does when seeming to collect her troubles and those of others, to bring them to that throat of hers that sounds like a cave. Tremendita had a ball, and gave everyone else a good time as well. Arcángel did his thing on Saturday night. He was so generous it even went too far, so concerned about the Bulgarian flautist Theodosii Spassov who accompanied him with exquisite taste, even in the final fandangos, that he forgot about himself a bit, about his voice and the extensive repertoire he has to offer.
Flashes of genius It’s only to be expected that a festival with a series called “Tapeos”, or tidbits, which offered free shows of ten or fifteen minutes between the main shows, would bring flashes of genius. Like “Minotauro” of José Galán who came on dressed in black, using his arms as horns to become a fierce fighting bull, leaving us wanting to see more of his prodigious form representing the death of a bull with such eloquence you wanted to cry. In dance there was something for everyone, but allow me to focus on the tremendous interpretive capacity of Pastora Galván who danced like a wild animal, emulating Lola Flores when she came out in the end with alegrías, dressed in polkadots and with a large shawl for a very difficult solo which only someone with legs like hers could manage. Pastora is daring, brash, beastly. Only Bobote, who played palmas for Tremendita and then for the dancer, has enough wherewithal and guts to take on Pastora and dance with her. Because the woman dances and prances like you don’t see any more, the image of an old photograph which, oddly enough, feels like a harbinger of the future.
A job well-done Ciutat Flamenco changed venue and philosophy, true enough. It’s back with more force and better taste. The single exception isn’t even the organization’s fault, and was in the series of documentaries which continues to be poor, uninteresting and with a quality inferior to the rest of what is offered in flamenco. The documentaries are still full of clichés, when these ought to be shot down, a job for professionals of the art-form. But let’s remember the good news: Ciutat Flamenco has shown Barcelona is a place for experimentation, and not for bizarre contemporary shows that should not be at odds with good taste or a job well-done. What people like Arcángel and Tremendita proved was that you can do nearly anything in flamenco, as in any other artistic genre, and that all you need is to take yourself seriously, work hard and always always be absolutely honest. Videos:
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