Thirteenth Festival Flamenco Caja Madrid. 2005. Carmen Linares – Israel Galván

NO ROOM FOR ROUTINE

Part 1: “De voz de madera”. Cante: Carmen Linares;
1st guitarra: Juan Carlos Romero; 2nd guitarra: Paco Cruzado; Percussion:
Antonio Carbonell; Palmas: Ana González and Javier González.

Part 2: “La Edad de Oro”. Dance: Israel Galván;
Cante: Fernando Terremoto; Guitar: Alfredo Lagos.

Text: Manuel Moraga

One of the most powerful forces there is in the world is
that of routine. So we are grateful that in the realm of flamenco
there are artists who struggle against it. Carmen Linares and Israel
Galván are two warriors in this struggle. And the most interesting
thing of all is that their methods are, for all purposes, diametrically
opposed.

“De voz de madera”. This was the title of the night’s
first program, featuring Carmen Linares. This singer is nothing
less than perfect. The “madera”, or wood that her voice
is made of could easily have derived from noble species such as
walnut, oak or chestnut, but I’d say it’s even more
than that: a voice taken from the very tree of flamenco, because
it has taken on nearly all the forms from all the many branches.
In her recordings as in her recitals she deals with a large portion
of the flamenco repertoire, from the most unusual to the most common
forms of today. And so it was with malagueña and the accompanying
“abandolao” styles used to close where we find for example
the nearly mystical sounds of fandango de Lucena.

Carmen always does a fine job with Levante forms, and that is what
came with the taranta. Along the way, some cantiñas, predominating,
the form known as romeras. After the taranta, some well-constructed
tientos with the gravity this form requires, closed out with tangos.
Soleá por bulería, siguiriya (beautiful, with the
Nitri style and the cabales of Silverio), and bulerías made
up the rest of the singer’s performance. Far from being content
with standard formulas, Carmen Linares continues to dispense pleasure
to those flamenco followers who need something more than soleá,
siguiriya and bulería.

But in addition to this continuous updating of the flamenco repertoire,
Carmen also refuses to fall into any sort of routine and always
seeks originality. And she knows how to do it. This was evident
in the soleá por bulería and in the curtain call pieces
where she interpreted a creation based on fandango de Huelva with
verses by José Luis Ortiz Nuevo and Juan Carlos Romero. And
this guitarist deserves special mention not only for the exceptional
accompaniment he provided the singer, but the for special climate
he created around the singing even when the rest of the group was
backing up and he went off into flights of fancy. I suspect that
a great deal of the originality we saw in this recital was thanks
to this man from Huelva. I also suspect that we’ll be having
to speak a great deal more about this guitarist and composer called
Juan Carlos Romero.

Another way of breaking with routine is by making a clean break.
Israel Galván is the best example of this in today’s
flamenco dance. In fact, his artistic discourse is based on the
destructuring of routine. The staging is the first obvious rupture:
with nothing to distract attention, completely austere, no extraneous
elements.

“The Golden Age” is what writers call the most creative
era in the history of flamenco singing. In that transition from
the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries many traditions were established
which we today hail as the foundations of cante. And this is the
title of Israel Galván’s work in which cante is most
certainly the center of attention. For his part, the dancer seems
to be exploring each moment of cante, dissecting each line to give
it his own personal expression.

Next
rupture: destructuring is the basis of his “deed of ownership”,
his expressive text. Neither soleá, nor alegrías,
nor martinete, nor any other of the pieces that traditional logic
would dictate. Israel Galván doesn’t waste any effort
on choreographing dances as we know them. He cuts directly to what
interests him: a dialogue with the cante. Thus broken the scheme
of things and the inertia, anything can happen. The spectator may
not even know when to applaud, which is actually unsettling at times.
And all the while Israel Galván does not appear to be a mere
flamenco dancer, but rather he creates his own persona. A sober
being, full of internal dialogues and who is acting even when he
is not dancing, that is, when the cante or guitar take the spotlight.
At such moments, the attitude is of profound respect: respect for
the grandeur of flamenco of that Golden Age.

More ruptures still. The aesthetic of his dance. It is certainly
nor your run-of-the-mill dancing. That is the key to his genius
for some, his downfall for others. The jumps, the kicks, his occasional
defiance, the erect posture, the apparent absence of logic, his
clothing (those peg-leg pants do him no favor, but perhaps he wants
to evoke the dress code of those earlier years), and so on. Israel
Galván’s language takes off from putting the formal
structures, which concern him little, in a new perspective. From
that starting point his dance is at the service of the inertia of
his concept, creating a personality which is a mixture of severe
and bohemian, profound and grotesque. And of course, the diametric
opposite of indifference.

The grandeur of the Golden Age of cante was provided by Fernando
Terremoto. Sober in all things: in the soleá, in the malagueña
del Mellizo, in the fandangos a capella which Israel danced, in
the siguiriya, in the martinete, in the tientos, in the bulería…in
short, everything. Alfredo Lagos on the guitar was in the same vein
and Israel also gave him the spotlight.

And so it came to pass that flamenco-lovers were able to enjoy
the encyclopedic cante of Carmen Linares who is always looking for
ways to break away from the most traditional repertoire. As far
as Israel Galván, the audience offered much applause and
earnest insistence on curtain calls which were only met with bows
(after all, this show is not a flamenco group that can tack another
piece on the end, but rather a hermetic entity), but opinions were
divided in after-show conversations. No matter how you slice it,
a night in which the routine was completely broken.

Photos: Rafael Manjavacas

Carmen Linares Antología 2CD