XIII Bienal de Flamenco de Sevilla. 'Celestina' Cía Flamenca Carmen Cortés

Estela Zatania

«Celestina»
Cía. Flamenca Carmen Cortés
Tuesday, October 5th, 2004. 9:00pm.
Teatro Central. Seville

Celestina: Carmen Cortés. Areúsa: Trinidad Artíguez. Melibea: Esther Esteban. Calixto: Isaac de los Reyes. Pármeno: Nino de los Reyes. Sempronio: Jesús Carmona. Music: Gerardo Núñez and Manuel Alonso. Choreography: Carmen Cortés.

Two stars from the world of flamenco, dancer Carmen Cortés and guitarist Gerardo Núñez are responsible for “Celestina”, a story of love, confrontation and treachery based on the 1499 classic attributed to Fernando de Rojas and which premiered at the last Festival de Jerez.

Considering the high artistic and professional level of Carmen and Gerardo it’s difficult, almost painful to have to enumerate the many shortcomings of this work which haven’t been ironed out since its debut. Gerardo’s prerecorded music is a collection of beautiful phrases that resist fitting into any flamenco form except at certain brief moments. Carmen, one of today’s best flamenco dancers, goes instead the way of modern dance, Martha Graham contractions and silent film histrionics when she could have blown everyone away just dancing por soleá. But no…that was not an option in this presentation because the human voice was banished, no cante thank you, we’re “modern”.

Nor does the thing work on a theatrical level. The story is presented as a confusing tangle of subplots – the program lists no fewer than twenty independent movements – difficult to unravel even for those familiar with the classic story. The portions of text read by Carmen cannot be understood due to muddy amplification, the dark hermetic ambience is never broken and the scant illumination completes a projection that is depressing and existential. Nevertheless it’s hard to overcome the feeling that it could all suddenly burst into flamenco if only a singer’s lament had been permitted.

A Dantesque world…a dark, hermetic ambience…the abstraction of evil

The use of voluminous flowing materials, in the wardrobe as well as in the set, serves to embellish the mystery of the work without heaping on more darkness. One scene is danced in a sort of portable shower without water and the suggestive flow of translucent fabric act as imagined dance partners. The voluminous burgundy-colored cape that Carmen uses to symbolize a Dantesque world seems to have a life of its own and her ample skirts are the abstraction of evil.

One brief moment of bulerías – it’s no more than thirty seconds – with Carmen and a male dancer, is like a ray of flamenco sunshine peeking between the dark clouds and immediately triggers applause, but we are soon returned to the dark labyrinthe of the impenetrable story.

At the finish there was polite but restrained applause from the half-full house which seemed to be seeking answers to the same questions we considered on out way to the cafeteria of the Teatro Central to chase away the depressing after-taste with a few beers and idle conversation: Will the unfortunate fashion of contrived stories dotted with pseudo-flamenco references never run out of steam? Will the great flamenco artists of our time never return to the flamenco fold? Will flamenco singing in dance presentations eventually become obsolete?

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