The surprising Eduardo Guerrero

Estela Zatania
Photos: Ana Palma

XXI FESTIVAL DE JEREZ
Eduardo Guerrero «Guerrero»
Friday, March 10th, 2017. 9:00pm. Teatro Villamarta, Jerez de la Frontera

 

Special 21 Festival de Jerez – All the information

 

Dance: Eduardo Guerrero. Guitar: Javier Ibáñez, Juan J. Alba. Guest artists (cante): Anabel Rivera, Sandra Zarzana, Samara Montañez. Original idea and choreography: Eduardo Guerrero.

The next-to-last day of the Festival de Jerez, Cádiz dancer Eduardo Guerrero “owned” the Villamarta Theater.  There is that feeling of having witnessed a triumph.  At just 34, and with a long résumé – he participated in the companies of Eva Yerbabuena and Rocío Molina among others, and holds important prizes in dance and choreography – he came to the historic venue so representative of Jerez, and left the audience completely exhausted from applauding.

His work “Guerrero” belongs to the line of dark flamenco dance shows…black wardrobe, black backdrop, scarce lighting…and the first ten or fifteen minutes of slow movement around the stage in near darkness, could be eliminated without being missed.  A complicated libretto relates “guerras”, or war, with the dancer’s surname.  Let’s just say this Guerrero is a magnificent dancer, with surprising technical command, a body made for dance, with long arms and legs he uses in a frankly original way, physical strength and above all else, a personality of his own.  Possessing a style that is geometric and angular, Eduardo Guerrero is Picasso’s cubism in movement.

The role of singers in flamenco is evolving.  They are more directly involved in the show, and there are more and more women singing for dance; less than fifty years ago this was a specialty reserved for the men.  In this case, three women, Anabel Rivera, Sandrá Zarzana and Samara Montañez, sang individually and in chorus, at times in harmony, as a unified team, revealing planning and dedicated rehearsal.  Saetas, malagueñas, fandangos naturales, nanas…Guerrero enjoys dancing with the absence of rhythm.  But there is also stylized abandolao, soleá por bulerías, siguiriyas, serrana, cantiñas…  And all the while, the dancer never leaves the stage for even a single moment, what energy!

There are moments that dangerously approach an over-zealous need to “sell”, and which subtracts credibility, but the audience eats it all up.  Noteworty was Anabel Rivera who suddenly located her id with Soleá de mis Pesares, providing a moment of excellence in an excellent work, and there was a delightful ending, more than welcome after all the darkness, in which the women sang rancheras por bulerías for Eduardo’s dance.

Photo gallery – Eduardo Guerrero by Ana Palma

 

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