VIII Festival de Jerez – 5 de marzo. Inmigración – Cía Mª Angeles Gabaldón – Miguel Poveda

Dance: Ángeles Gabaldón, Marco
A. Vargas, Fani Fuster, Felipe Mato, Lourdes Recio, Nicolia Morris,
François Soumah, Chloé B. Dauphin. Cante: Manuel Lombo,
Jallal Chekara. Guitar: Daniel Méndez, Óscar
Lago, Keko Baldomero. Percusión: Antonio
Montiel. Choreography: Javier Latorre, Ángeles
Gabaldón, Marco A. Vargas.

The eighth day of the Festival de Jerez began in full flamenco
swing at the Museo Taurino with singer Capullo de Jerez, and Niño
Jero at the guitar. Neither ‘niños’ nor ‘capullos’
(children, flowerbuds), but both seasoned veterans, they managed
to get the audience jumping out of their seats as always, with no
accessories other than compás and the structure of flamenco
which is always there for those who know how to make use of it.

After
Farruquito’s offering the previous night, any ‘work’
would pale by comparison. But theatrical flamenco with all the trimmings
is now fashionable with the general public, and the show “Inmigración”
takes the premise even further with an audiovisual presentation
and openly transcultural intentions.

On the surface the central theme is, as the title suggests, immigration
and the problems of immigrants, but author and director Fernando
González-Caballos deftly uses that jumping-off point to combine
incongruent ethnic or cultural references reflecting the musical
direction of flamenco in recent years. From the radio comes a voice
speaking in German to count the 12 grapes customarily consumed on
New Year’s Eve in Spain, two black dancers drive home the
fact that flamenco is universal, a message further reinforced by
singer Jallal Chekara who sings por soleá in Arabic, and
mining cante is accompanied by rock music.

“Inmigración” is a collection of vignettes,
some better than others, interspersed with disturbing images of
the infrahuman conditions at borders and refugee camps. Flamenco
takes a back seat to social protest. Thirty years ago Mario Maya
explored the terrain of flamenco as a political tool, but it’s
always a risky proposition. Despite conveying tragic emotions, a
siguiriya that raises goosebumps brings shouts of ‘ole’,
applause and contented faces, because no matter how you care to
slice it, it’s entertainment. After all, flamenco was born
in poverty and developed within a framework of extreme necessity.
By contrast, these explicit images of misery, whether projected
or danced, manage to elicit sympathy but function better as protest
than art. There is no doubt that “Inmigración”
avoids superficiality, but it goes to the opposite extreme projecting
a relentless depressive feeling that does not fulfill the principal
mission of all art which is to stimulate and, like it or not, entertain.

Despite regionalisms and prejudice,
Poveda
is getting hard-earned recognition

After
intermission the voice of Miguel Poveda and his guitarist Chicuelo
offered a recital of traditional cante. The two Catalonians know
how to capture the essence of various flamenco forms, as demonstrated
from the first moment with alegrías de Cádiz and of
Pinini, fresh and flavorful. Poveda has taken some time to make
his mark down here in Andalusia, but despite regionalisms and prejudice,
he is getting hard-earned recognition. Verses that evoke “blessed
compas, blessed Pericón and La Perla” do him no harm,
nor does his declaration: “I would like to dedicate this recital
to a person from Jerez who taught me a great deal, Luis el Zambo”.

Malagueñas which include a splendid interpretation of the
lovely style of Concha la Peñaranda, and Chicuelo is right
up to the task, carefully administering his modernist tendencies
to support the cante perfectly. With the mining cante that earned
him a major triumph ten years ago in La Unión, Poveda shows
off his skill contrasting sweet, exquisitely internalized melisma,
with a full open voice at just the right moment.

Martinetes, tangos, and to wrap it up, this Catalonian dared to
sing to Jerez por bulerías, without guitar accompaniment
for much of the beginning, with the compás of three ‘palmeros’,
and one verse underlined the emotional debt he feels: “The
first time in the Plazuela, the first time in Santiago, the cante
of Luis el Zambo made me drunk, no one sings por bulería
like that gypsy”.

We
left Miguel Poveda just as he was wrapping up his recital and the
audience was beginning to cheer him on, to make a bee-line for the
Sala de la Compañía to see dancer Andrés Peña
and singer Rafael de Utrera, also managing to take in singer Anabel
Rosado with guitarist Fernando Moreno at the peña cultural
El Perro de Paterna. Five different flamenco shows in a single day…I
must be in Jerez.

Text: Estela
Zatania

Theater
Villamarta Program
De Peña
en Peña Program: Trasnoches,
De Peñas, Peña de Guardia
Other
shows(Gloria Pura, Bordón
y cuenta nueva, De la Frontera, Café Cantante, Sólos
en Compañía)
Courses
and workshops