Tribute to Pedro Bacán en Lebrija. Inés Bacán, Pepa de Benito, Concha Vargas, Carmen Ledesma

Artists: Inés Bacán, Enrique Sordera, Diego de la
Margara, Antonio El Pelao, Curro Vargas, Pepa de Benito, Carmen
Ledesma, Concha Vargas, Antonio Moya, Fernanda Peña, Vicente
Romaní, Carmen de Quintín. Guest artist: Curro Malena.
Special collaboration: Sevi Bacán.

Text and photos: Estela Zatania

I’d
almost forgotten. You see so many shows, one more breath-taking
than the next, with more polished choreography, better amplification,
professional lighting, impressive arrangements and lavish funding.
When you go to a concert in the new milennium and settle into your
cushy seat, you do so in the knowledge that what your senses are
about to perceive represents the most elevated degree of flamenco
art…don’t you? Then, after about an hour and a half, two
hours, if you’re a flamenco fan, all too often you leave the
theater with a feeling of having seen something, at best, entertaining
if vapid, at worst, presumtuous and boring. You even come to believe
that high-quality flamenco cannot be represented in a theater. The
music that grabbed you all those years ago, taking over your life,
separating you from family, friends and lovers, still exists, but
it seems impossible to find from the comfort of a theater seat.

Then one day you attend a town’s tribute to one of its favorite
sons, an artist who nine years ago died prematurely under tragic
circumstances. Maybe that was it, because guitarist Pedro Bacán
(Lebrija, 1951-1997) is remembered with the greatest affection,
and his family was present, not only in the audience but also on
stage, most significantly his son Seve on guitar and his sister
Inés singing. At eight o’clock that day Alfonso García
had presented his biography of Pedro Bacán, a book which
drew its title from a solo record (1989) and was the title of this
show: “Aluricán en Azul y Verde”. ‘Azul
y verde’, blue and green, the colors of the gypsy banner.
‘Aluricán’, a non-word that sounds of mystery,
Arabness and hurricanes… Thanks to the book we can read this explanation
given by Pedro himself: “Aluricán is a word I’ve
never heard outside my own family. I have no idea where it comes
from, but my father, Bastián Bacán, always began his
stories like this: ‘Aluricán in the night…’
Aluricán is a word which is full of mystery. It describes
the essence of things”.

Two tremendous personalities,
a formula which tends not to work, managed a sublime rapport

At the beginning of the nineteen-nineties Pedro Bacán dreamed
of recuperating, conserving and spreading the art of his extended
family and of Lebrija, eventually producing several shows that had
a greater impact in France than in Spain. On Saturday evening, May
20th 2006, at Lebrija’s Juan Bernabé Theater, the family
came together once again to pay tribute to this sorely missed and
much-remembered artist with a show that did honor to his vision.

The off-stage voice of Miguel Funi, the only clearly theatrical
ploy, set the atmosphere with some brief comments and the artists
took turns: first Inés Bacán with a nana and Pepa
de Benito with the fandangos por soleá she always interprets
so well. Enrique Soto “Sordera”, on loan from Jerez,
sang alegrías for a surprising pas de deux with Carmen Ledesma
and Concha Vargas. These two tremendous personalities, a formula
which tends not to work, managed a sublime rapport which took over
the stage and the audience with a dense and weighty dance reminiscent
of times past, no superficiality, not one extraneous movement. Curro
Malena sang soleá and tonás, Enrique sang tangos for
Ledesma’s dance, siguiriyas by Inés and the cantiñas
of Pinini de Lebrija in Pepa de Benito’s wonderful interpretation.

With a captivating flamenco sound Concha Vargas’ daughter
sang bulerías for her mother with the peculiar Lebrija compás
demonstrating, not only the power of this rhythm, but the importance
of learning to appreciate other facets of this fundamental form
which are not purely jovial or necessarily derived from the Jerez
sound. Between the two of them they managed to reach an almost unbearable
level of tension which left no one unmoved.

There have been other efforts, with dubious results, to present
a sort of flamenco with little staging or theatrics. This time the
great flamenco machine was well-oiled and everything came together.
There are times, places and audiences for the highly-polished thoroughly
rehearsed type of show so popular nowadays. But what we saw in Lebrija,
visceral and basic, is occasionally needed to repeat the original
signal and remind us all of the potential power of a monumental
art-form.

For the final bow the group unfurled an enormous blue and green
banner echoing the title of the show.