In the classic documentary film of Edgar Neville of 1952, Duende y Misterio del Flamenco, towards the end we see a fiesta on the deck of a small boat that tranquilly navigates down the Guadalquivir. A thin older man pulls off some comical moves in rhythm accompanied by the handclapping of those present, including a young Chano Lobato. It’s been 74 years since then, but that way of dancing is repeated daily in endless gatherings, especially to bulerías rhythm, wherever there are flamenco followers.
Flamenco in private gatherings has managed to keep its spontaneity, especially when it’s bulerías, people enjoy those forms rich with innocent humor. At the same time, at the theater across the street, young dancers are rehearsing impressive combinations of footwork, acrobatic leaps and bounds and other novelties, in search of flamenco.
For thirty years the Festival de Jerez has been seeking out the thread which gave us so many successful shows and few disappointments. I remember the first time Rocío Molina, unknown at the time, debuted in the Festival. This was at the Sala Compañía, and I was accompanied by a guitarist friend who spent the entire time with his mouth open. Such was the power of the young Malaga dancer that at the end the friend solemnly declared: “I don’t know what that was I just saw, but I know it was verrry important”.
The great Eva Yerbabuena won over audiences again and again with her soleá, and shows full of novel elements. Her fellow Granada dancer Manuel Liñán caused a stir with his successful show Viva! María Pagés, Sara Baras, Marco Flores and many others, major stars of dance, as well as the best guitarists and singers…we’re in Jerez after all!
Right in the middle of the 2014 edition of the Festival, our much-admired prince of the guitar, the one who had shaken us out of the doldrums, the unexpected disappearance of Paco de Lucía had me crying on Gamboa’s arm, and there was that final flourish with guitars raised high and celestial illumination that took us to another level.
For several early years of the Festival de Jerez in the new millennium, we saw the gradual and inexplicable disappearance of traditional dance accessories. The beautiful embroidered shawls, accessories as innocent as colorful earrings and flowers, scarves around the neck, large decorative fans, the clicking of castanets played by specialists like Lucero Teena or José de Udaeta, or any Spanish dancer as part of their preparation. And saddest of all, female dancers stopped using the long trains, bata de cola. I remember a heated debate on this topic during one Festival de Jerez: “the accessories are too corny!” protested the younger dancers. But veteran maestra Merche Esmeralda said “young dancers want everything simple”. Fortunately, after a few years, the accessories returned little by little, and the sound of clicking castanets once again represented Spain.
Along the way, the austerity of an all-black wardrobe became fashionable, as did scant illumination on stage and melodramatic story-lines, Lorca-style flamenco. But the good thing about big festivals such as that of Jerez is that a wide assortment of shows is available to satisfy a variety of tastes, from the most classical to the most avant-garde, perspectives that exist parallel to one another under the great protective blanket of flamenco.
