IX Festival Internacional de Jerez 2005. Ballet Nacional de España. Gerardo Núñez

Lead dancers:
Christián Lozano, Úrsula López, Elena
Algado, Miguel A. Corbacho. First dancers: Esther Jurado,
Óscar Jiménez, Francisco J. Velasco. Soloists:
Cristina Gómez, Tamara López, Penélope
Sánchez, Mariano, Berna, Jesús Córdoba,
Alberto Ferrero, Jesús Florencio, Sergio García.
Guest dancer: Primitivo Daza. Cante: Isabel Soto, Manuel Palacín,
Jesús Soto “El Almendro”. Guitar: Enrique
Bermúdez, Jonathan Bermúdez, David Cerreduela
“Caracolillo”. Percussion: Sergio Martínez.
Sax and flute: Pedro Ontiveros. Pianists: Juan Álvarez,
Juan José Sánchez. Director: José Antonio.
Flamenco master and asistent directo: Fernando Romero. Coreography:
Javier Latorre. Music coordinator: Mauricio Sotelo.

All the information IX
Festival de Jerez

Text: Estela Zatania

The first day of the ninth Festival de Jerez got
off to a dignified start with a finely-crafted presentaion
from Spain’s Ballet Nacional. Under the direction of
José Antonio, with Javier Latorre’s choreography,
Manuel de Falla’s music as backdrop and a cast more
numerous than that of a full-length DeMille movie, the story
unfolds with scenes from the life of Seville dancer Félix
Fernández García (1893-1941) who spent his final
days in an English asylum for the mentally ill after a disappointing
experience in London with ballet master Diaghilev and the
Ballet Russes.

This
is what we’re told in the program notes, but what the
spectator sees is the classic portrait of an unstable artist
seeking to find his place in a society that does not tolerate
creativity. In four scenes titled respectively “En el
santuario de Epson”, “Aires de burlerías”,
“En el café cantante”, “Les Ballets
Russes” y “En la iglesia de Saint Martín”,
the work puts music and movement to filmmaker Stanley Kubrick’s
terrible statement: “Individuality is a monster that
must be strangled in the crib so that others need not be made
to feel uncomfortable”.

“El Loco” longs to be innovative including moments
of modern dance that bring little more than a yawn at this
stage of the game, but in the end an old formula that alternates
semiclassical Spanish dance with flamenco dance does the trick.
It’s a formula that worked for Argentinita, for Pilar
López, for Carmen Amaya, Antonio Ruiz, José
Greco and so many others, defining “Spanish ballet”
for decades, and which works here as well largely thanks to
the exquisite production. The dancers are very well-prepared
although there are no real stars, the musicians are competent
for the task at hand, the lighting, staging and in particular
the wardrobe, which not only represents Picasso’s figures,
but paints with color just as a painter his paintings (extremely
refreshing in this age of black clothing in flamenco works),
are all first-class

The work puts music and movement
to filmmaker Stanley Kubrick’s terrible statement: “Individuality
is a monster that must be strangled in the crib so that others
need not be made to feel uncomfortable”.

This choreography of Latorre’s may be his best work
to date, and the overall product might be described as a cross
between “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”
and “Star Wars”, because some details of the staging,
wardrobe and even the music have a sci-fi feel with just a
dash of “Midnight Express”. There’s very
little cante, but when a human voice finally rings out in
the Café Cantante scene, and this is no star flamenco
singer by any means, it’s a rush of warmth and flamenconess
to which the audience reacts immediately. The moment truly
drives home the fact that cante is the heart and the soul
of flamenco – one wonders how some dancers choose to
eliminate cante altogether, and to what end. In fact, the
“complete” alegrías, with its traditional
sections of ‘silencio’, ‘castellana’
and ‘escobilla’ danced by a woman not identified
on the program, turns out to be the most successful number.
Might it be because of those one hundred and fifty years the
dance has been undergoing choreographic fine-tuning by great
dancers? One farruca is sung, and another is not, flashes
of garrotín, a sort of buleria waltz and a siguiriya
are other highlights that break the relative monotony of the
stream-of-consciousness music.

Noteworthy amidst the crowd of dancers is Tamara López,
who possesses the extraordinary ability to move in slow motion
capturing subtleties that pass unnoticed in real time, and
also interesting are the folk style ‘jota’ dance
with heeled shoes and danced with bulerías steps, and
a version of “La Danza de la Molinera” which updates
a classic the dancer Antonio popularised.

In the end four thuggies arrive to wrap up the “loco”
in a long piece of white cloth which serves as straight-jacket
(just in case someone forgot to read the program notes), and
the surprising image of female dancers with white stockings
pulled over their faces completes the surrealistic ambience
of a work which is both professional and entertaining “despite”
the lavish funding behind it.

The destillation and assimilation
of a Jerez feeling

At midnight in the wine-cellar of González Byass,
Gerardo Núñez, today’s maestro guitarist,
offered his recital “Andando el tiempo” with his
regular backup Pablo Martín on double-bass and Cepillo
doing percussion. In this special setting we were able to
fully appreciate the contrasted guitar voicing which Gerardo
dominates so thoroughly. His compositions are the distillation
and assimilation of a Jerez feeling, although now and again
his over-manipulation of the compás, which he has floating
over the surface just out of reach of the normal flamenco
fan, becomes annoying. Nevertheless it would be no exaggeration
to say that this guitarist is the next leap after Paco de
Lucía because he exponentially expands the musicality
of flamenco, nearly always (but not always) conserving its
flamenco identity.