I always feel quite moved when I see people working in behalf of flamenco in cities outside of Andalusia, the place where this art was born (although flamenco has now become universal), and I feel particularly moved when these people are young. It\u2019s a commitment which I cheer\u00a0a comp\u00e1s<\/i>. In Cartagena, where I was able to attend its festival \u201cPerlas a Millares<\/i>\u201d (\u201cThousands of Pearls<\/i>\u201d), which included bringing back the Cante Contest, it\u2019s truly admirable how hard everyone has worked, in particular Mar\u00eda Luisa, Dori, Rafa Ros and \u00c1ngel Ronda, with limited resources, little sleep and, above all, big dreams of giving Cartagena a flamenco festival worthy of its history as a city and as place which has given us flamenco styles and flamenco artists.<\/p>\n
The most important thing was to bring back the contest, and they did it. It\u2019s true that the result wasn\u2019t quite as expected, because not a lot of public attended and, besides, the quality wasn\u2019t as high as it\u2019s hoped for such events. Out of the three prize-winners, two, (El Veneno and El Petro) are good\u00a0cantaores<\/i>who have already won plenty of awards all over the country, yet they cannot be considered \u201cnew talent\u201d. V\u00edctor Palacios, the third prize-winner, from Barcelona, can. Yet, in a contest where there\u2019s no age limit for the contestants, the winner is whoever performs the best, according to the jury, whether they\u2019re young or not. Flamenco contests need a tweak, a change, otherwise they serve no purpose.<\/p>\n
Yet, besides the contest (which must be improved if they expect to keep holding it in the future with a guarantee of success), what I found very interesting were the parallel activities: lectures and courses, concerts in bars and on the streets, etc. Cartagena is a city with almost three thousand years of history and it has wonderful nooks, and the organizers managed to take flamenco to the streets, with the most traditional lyrics written down on the pavement in the main pedestrian areas, such as, for example, Canales street, where the king of\u00a0cante levantino<\/i>, Rojo El Alpargatero, had his inn and caf\u00e9. Those lyrics, moreover, could be listened to, using a smartphone\u2019s camera, something I had never seen before.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d like to highlight the work of the festival\u2019s director, Mar\u00eda Luisa Saura, as well as that of Rafa Ros, \u00c1ngel Ronda, Antonio Gonz\u00e1lez, Fulgencio Garc\u00eda and Teresa Balsalobre. It was truly amazing how, despite their huge workload, they were always well disposed to look after us, their guests. They are all great flamenco aficionados. The artists go, work, cash in and go back home, yet they, who have worked for free, have given it all for this festival and have created beautiful moments. They belong to the\u00a0Pe\u00f1a Flamenca Antonio Pi\u00f1ana<\/i>and, just as the festival and the contest have ended, they\u2019re already thinking about the yearly programming of the\u00a0Cartagena Jonda<\/i>\u00a0series.<\/p>\n
Flamenco keeps growing all over the world, and that\u2019s not just thanks to the artists, who are the true protagonists, but also because those who volunteer in\u00a0pe\u00f1as<\/i>, festivals and cultural cycles. With such human team, Cartagena has a lot to say in the world of flamenco, as it did in the old days. The work of these people, some of them very young but very keen on getting things done, is truly essential.<\/p>\n
Translated by P. Young<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I always feel quite moved when I see people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-archivo"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.expoflamenco.com\/archivo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/PerlasAMillaresCartel.jpg\")
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