Festival Flamenco Caja Madrid 2011. Manuela Carrasco / El Pele

Text: Manuel Moraga
Photos: Rafael Manjavacas

NOT THE SAME WITHOUT THEM

“This is a great pleasure” said Manuela Carrasco upon receiving the award “Calle de Alcalá”, the most prestigious flamenco distinction given in the Madrid autonomous community.  Manuela Carrasco thus joins the roster of privileged dancers and choreographers who have earned the recognition, such as Pilar López, Mario Maya, El Güito and Blanca del Rey among others.  Illness kept Luis de Córdoba from returning to Madrid’s stages, which led to El Pele`s appearing at the Circo Price Theater.  In the end, it was a night for the gypsies.

Manuela Carrasco » Galardón Flamenco Callé de Alcalá»
President of Caja Madrid, D. Rodrigo Rato

And it is also something for flamenco followers to be proud of, that this type of gypsy art continues to have people like Manuela Carrasco and El Pele.  It was precisely Pele who opened the evening with the very high quality moving guitar accompaniment of Manuel Silveria.  It’s funny how the machinations of commerce and the social need for heroes are all too often determined disproportionately among certain interpreters, while others of great worth, such as El Pele among many others, seem condemned to a never-ending battle for massive recognition of their art.  Let’s see who can name one single singer of recent years with greater artistic quality than Pele.  In my opinion no one is “the best”…each one of us has our own personal yardstick of aesthetic and emotional affinities…but I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that no one is “better than” Pele.

Having said that, last night was not one of Pele’s best, despite having sung admirably, especially from the soleares on.  It wasn’t one of his best, not because it was of poor quality by any means, but rather because those of us who have followed this artist over the years have been able to compare, and we are aware that this isn’t an exact science.  He started out struggling with a voice that wasn’t warmed up, an audience not quite on his side and the very nature of the theater.  There are venues that do little to cultivate the feeling of intimacy required by flamenco, and the Circo Price Theater is one of them.  Nor was the lighting at all favorable.

See video

Noteworthy is the outsized personality Pele exhibits in everything he does.  Everything, from the malagueñas to the fandangos de Huelva.  It was however, as I mentioned, por soleá where Pele began to find himself and was more at ease, interpreting each verse straight from the heart, and this was when he began to communicate, with the cante slowly meted out, with the intense internal compás this singer knows how to deliver and with a moving closing.  The siguiriyas were out of this world.  Siguiriyas, incidentally, which he dedicated to the authorities present in the theater.  We do not know if that message of pain via siguiriyas was directed to the powers that be as a reference to the economic crisis we are going through, but that was to whom he dedicated his interpretation.  He was also outstanding in alegrías, fandangos and bulerías.  Knowledge, capacity, drama, compás, musicality, personality…who else has it all? 

In the second part, Manuela Carrasco.  Firstly, the sparse staging of “Suspiro Flamenco”, classic, with only the occasional irrelevant projection on the backdrop and certain moments.  I believe someone holding Spain’s National Dance award ought to be expected to bring more to the stage.  Nevertheless, you have to admit that as far as substance, if Manuela Carrasco didn’t exist, we’d have to invent her.  The sheer energy, even when standing stock still or subtly marking, is a lesson in what flamenco dance should be.  Manuela has the good sense to bring good guitarists and singers, and from the first sounds you’re already transfixed.  On this occasion Manuela also brought four dancers who provide downtime between her numbers. These men dancers have personalities of their own, but would have been better in group numbers.
 
The second interpretation was alegrías, and in my opinion, something was missing.  Over-the-top emotion as in the soleá used to close.  A friendly tug-of-war between the gypsy singing of the great singer Enrique el Extremeño and the dancing of the gypsy woman from Triana.  These are moments that trigger cheers, that make you squirm in your seat and make this artform unique: professionalism at the service of the creative moment.  Something Manuela Carrasco is particularly good at.

When a professional becomes an artist on stage, the result is pure spiritual energy.  And it is, generally speaking, something which characterizes the concept of art held by gypsies in flamenco.  El Pele and Manuela Carrasco are a good example.  Flamenco is a discipline with, fortunately, a multitude of aesthetic differences and complementary elements.  But certainly, without gypsies, it’s not the same.