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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 April 1999 Issue No. 425 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 April 1999 Issue No. 425
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Flamingo, my God
By David Blake
Noche Flamenca. Artistic director Martin Santangelo. Cairo Opera House, Main Hall, 8 and 9 April
Not flamingo or the name of a new car but Noche Flamenca, a dance group from Spain. And what they give is a show that tries to take Flamenco out of the big pop musical arenas and back to its roots -- the small intimate cafés and dives of its metropolitan origins.
Flamenco has a lot of what it takes to get along forever, but to be itself it needs the messianic effluvium that hangs in the air with the blues, Piaf, Garland (The Man Who Got Away), Holiday and Ellington. This atmosphere is of the heart and nothing can touch it.
The Noche Flamenca aims high. They are a noble, elegant group without any of the squalid pretensions which can ruin a true flamenco performance. They do the Opera House proud with their energy and consecrated blend of movement and personality.
At certain times the show soars to rare heights. For the rest, on the first free public night, it had to battle with an audience more given to me, me, me than the show in hand. Shoes by Gallardo, cars by BMW, applause by types falling over themselves to get into the limelight. The Noche troupe had to compete with a mega-city embrace, offering, as they did, a simplified intimate feeling. Unfazed, the audience packed the theatre from floor to roof, made exaggerated shows of love until the end came when they turned and trooped to the exits to make for their own glamour coaches filling the parking lot.
The next and last night was a different thing. Less prance, more dance. The Noche had the place, as it were, to themselves. As in real flamenco almost everything was changed from the previous night. More concentration, entire pieces improvised, the audience attentive and moved.
Bruno Argenta and Soledad Barrio; Maria Celsa Fernandez Flamenco fits Verdi's marvellous description of his greatest opera La Forza del Destino -- potente, singolare e vastissimo, soul not solfeggi -- far better than the words of Lorca. Since the 1920s, the world has been hard on flamenco. Civil war, revolution, fascism from all directions, flamenco almost took to the mountains forever. Yet it has emerged victorious if battered. And thanks to people like the Noche Flamenca its great heart still beats strong, as this special night's performance revealed.
The name flamenco has an electric-shock-effect. At its very mention crowds stream into opera house and football arena to become part of its pounding, stamping and swooping. No other dance can compete with its appeal and Noche Flamenca made no effort to soften any of its inherited steeliness.
Erotic is a soft word: sex is more disturbing, an aspect well displayed by Noche Flamenca. Sex is not even a war: it is a contagion of the race for which no one mentionable is to blame, there in the dark, in the light, in flame, blood and blackness. Flamenco never names colours of the soul but leaves it to the individual.
The company is small: two guitarists, one deep bass, two singers and three dancers, one male and two female. The ground covered by this group is vast and the messages purveyed stark, shattering, but never hopeless. The dancers strut and flash like sword blades in an uncertain light. The colours are mostly dim-out or black. Shadows are deeper than lights and only occasionally, when the two women take to the stage solo, is there colour.
The more muscular, Soledad Barrio, was like a volcano. She runs, shunts like a steam train, darts and rears herself like a fighter at bay and she has feet of marvels, pure steel which yet can whisper percussive rhythms. To see her heave herself up like a panther about to attack, then head down, make the charge, is to feel pity for the victim. Her face marble calm, her incision terrifying, she was wild, tame and free. Her solos opened and closed the performance.
In between, in the first half of the programme, comes the other bailaora, Maria Celsa Fernandez. She is tall, dressed in black, but with a fine white lace jabot falling from throat to below the waist in a billowing froth. Her skirt is black, the underskirt white lace. Her long face carries through the entire theatre with clarity. A haughty profile, like a Hokusai drawing, turned her into a swaying idol, feminine, alluring and aloof. She wears a white silky mantilla, and to see her flight across the stage, the mantilla undulating like the white wings of a sea bird about to land, was one of the thrills of the night. Her arms go on forever. She halts her flight once, revealing fastidious footwork. With imperial elegance, she lifts the black skirt, does a few stamps, then looks at the audience straight on, contemptuous, irresistible, like Goya's Duchess of Alba.
Following her came the only bailaor of the company, Bruno Argenta. Not tall, but his arms were, and they made him look an avenging angel.
These three floated the Noche Flamenca to rare heights. They never smile, they glare at the audience. You out there, go home, you're not much, we do the clapping ourselves, and better.
