XV BIENAL DE FLAMENCO DE SEVILLA. PASOS PARA DOS. Rosario Toledo & Ana Salazar

XV BIENAL DE FLAMENCO DE SEVILLA

“Pasos para dos” – Rosario Toledo y Ana Salazar

September 14th, 2008. 9:00pm Teatro Central

SPECIAL BIENAL DE FLAMENCO DE SEVILLA 2008

Text: Estela Zatania
Photos: © Archivo Bienal de Flamenco, Luis Castilla

Dance: Rosario Toledo. Cante and dance: Ana Salazar. Flamenco guitar: Daniel Méndez. Cante: David Palomar.  Electric guitar: Israel Sandoval. Bass: José María Posada Popo. Percussion and drums: Guillermo McGill. Percussion: Raúl Botella. Guest artist: Herminia Borja. Director: Pepa Gamboa. Music director: Guillermo McGill. Composition: Guillermo McGill and Daniel Méndez. Choreography director: Juan Carlos Lérida. Coreography: Juan Carlos Lérida, Ana Salazar, Rosario Toledo.

It’s never good when an artist falls in love with his work, or specific elements of a work.  The theatrical production “Pasos para Dos” presented Sunday night at the Teatro Central, demonstrates what happens when this advice is not heeded.  It’s a show with two players, “bosom buddies” the program tells us, and contains some wonderful elements.  Such as the hilarious carnival drunkenness shared by the two girls, Rosario Toledo and Ana Salazar, with their very own party, singing and dancing while we hear the sound of laughter and fireworks, or the stage surrounded by real water to represent the city of Cádiz, where Salazar refreshes herself sticking her head in the water after one number, or the alegrias the two dance, hamming up a retro choreography.  Rosario’s straightforward soleá is also worthwhile.

But these are brief passages haphazardly basted together, and the pace of the work suffers the rude intrusion of loud jazz music that treads with a clumsy step straight through the guitar, cante and dance.  Ana Salazar’s taste for a cabaret aesthetic in the way of Liza Minelli, manages finally to dispell any trace of flamenco, Andalusian or even Spanish feeling.  Flamenco is a delicate creature with a set of characteristics that tolerates discreet modification, carefully applied.  “Pasos para Dos” doesn’t let the genre come up for air, and decades of evolution are sacrificed at the altar of theatrical effects.

Salazar has plenty of personality, but cannot compete with Rosario in dance, nor with David Palomar and Herminia Borja in cante.  In fact, Rosario herself could have put on one terrific show with just cante and guitar.  Hold on…that’s exactly what she did not long ago with her magnificent work “Los Aires de Cádiz”, a perfect gem of art and good taste.  But the temptation to fix something that wasn’t broke, got the better of her.

“Pasos para Dos” is entertaining enough, but any out-of-towner who came to see this show in search of flamenco, can only go away disappointed.  You have to love the grand irony of the overwhelming urge to “globalize” flamenco that has brought us to a point at which people from all over the work come to the Bienal de Flamenco de Sevilla, only to discover a non-descript international music that differs little from what they have back home.