La Lupi's temperamental voyage to flamenco

Text: Estela Zatania
Photos: Ana Palma

22nd FESTIVAL DE JEREZ
Compañía Flamenca La Lupi “La Paula”
Sunday, February 25th, 2018. 9:00pm. Teatro Villamarta, Jerez de la Frontera

Photo gallery – La Lupi Ana Palma

Flamenco needs La Lupi. She has the instincts of someone much older, flamenco without superficiality, inspired and authentic, with impressive interpretive talent. Brave above all else, she has not been seduced by the coldness of others of her generation. On the contrary. She revels in extravagant movements and gestures – the dance style of Triana’s neighborhood patios comes naturally to her – she is unafraid of ugliness at the service of art. Lupi is nearly an anachronism in these times of conceptual works, so often undecipherable for the casual flamenco fan.

Her work, “La Paula”, a more or less biographical representation of Málaga dancer Paula García Fernández (1902-1978), functions at the personal level of Lupi herself, but not so much as the theatrical dance piece it aspired to.

The individual elements are excellent: Juan de Juan gives a turn of the screw to Farruco-style dance, and accompanies Lupi on her temperamental voyage to outer flamenco space. The guitars of Curro de María and Óscar Lago have no time for vacuous modernism when there’s singing and dancing in need of rhythm and inspiration right now. David el Galli on voice, along with Manuel Tañé and the instinctive Chelo Pantoja, with the collaboration of Antonio Cortés, the percussion of David Galiano, the violin of Nelson Doblas and the rhythm of Roberto Jaén, deliver so much energy, you feel the gush of flamenco all the way to the last row of seats. And what can I say about young María Terremoto who made the air cry with her saeta?…or the surprise performance of Miguel Poveda whose appearance on stage drove the audience wild?

And now for the “buts”. Something was missing in the work as such. Even having read the program notes, it was hard to detect intentions. The final result came off as a period piece with long silences that couldn’t be understood (that I didn’t understand), although I immensely enjoyed the most flamenco moments, so rich and tasty, the calorie content of each piece ought to show on the program: alegrías, fandango por soleá, tientos, tangos de Málaga, malagueña, soleá, bulerías… Flamenco needs La Lupi, I haven’t the slightest doubt.

A la medianoche en la Sala Paúl, dentro del ciclo Mujeres con Nombre Propio, Lucía la Piñona presentó su trabajo contemporáneo “Emovere”, bajo la dirección artística de José Maldonado, con la guitarra de Francisco Vinuesa, el cante de Eva Ruiz, ‘La Lebri’, siempre menospreciada, Jonathan Reyes y Moi de Morón con la percusión de Paco Vega.

Photo Gallery Lucía la Piñona, by Ana Palma