Flamenco: From Puro To Nuevo

Dance Magazine, June, 2001 by Paula Durbin

"Anything called flamenco sells out in New York," observes the dancer Matteo, and by anything he means classes and lectures as well as performances. Matteo is respected for, among other achievements, his authoritative reference The Language of Spanish Dance and the long, successful career he shared with his wife, the late Carola Goya. No one would argue his point except to add that these days flamenco is big everywhere.

At least one reason for the surge in popularity is the increased exposure that began twenty years ago with the first of Carlos Saura's five films paying homage to the arts of southern Spain. Of those carded by the hypnotic bravura of Antonio Gades and Cristina Hoyos, Carmen became an arthouse sensation and, for many, it still defines flamenco. As the momentum has accelerated, stage shows opened around the world, notably Claudio Segovia and Hector Orezzoli's Flamenco Puro, fired with wit, nerve, and sexual tension. The production, which opened on Broadway in 1986 and later toured nationally, might have been too esoteric for mass consumption, but aficionados loved the structured sobriety, the explosions of pent-up passions, and the figuras: gravel-voiced cantaor Chocolate; the Carmona guitarist clan; El Guito; Manuela Carrasco; and the Farruco dynasty, dancers all better for being older and wiser.

By the mid-1990s, though, applying the Riverdance formula of flashy lighting, amplified footwork, hard-bodied beauties, and a stud-muffin star, Joaquin Cortes's Pasion Gitana was attracting the largest audiences in flamenco history. Effortlessly tossing off tours de force fused from ballet and modern as well as flamenco, Cortes displays technical prowess and sheer magnetism. He often flaunts his bare chest and sometimes wears a "ninja" skirt. In his latest production, Soul (as in African American music), which he calls an "homage to soul, gospel, Cuba, and Spain," he's in a bata de cola, the gown with train used by female dancers.

After years of playing to packed houses, Cortes confirmed to Buenos Aires's Contratiempo [a monthly publication on flamenco and Spanish dance] that he's calling it quits, but he said, profoundly confident, that fusions wouldn't disappear with him. "Flamenco fusion is something I invented ten years ago in my country, and now it's in fashion," he declared. "Since I started this style, everyone in Spain is doing it."

Well, not quite, and the concept of fusion, if not the hype, predates the Cortes phenomenon. In the twentieth century, choreographers began applying Spanish vocabulary of mixed origin to the orchestrations of flamenco rhythms and Andalusian melodies by classical and zarzuela [Spanish operetta] composers. Luisa Pericet, my teacher in Buenos Aires, taught her students to call the genre "contemporary." (Others call it "Spanish classical," but that can be a synonym for the escuela bolera, the Spanish version of classical ballet. The term "neoclassical'' is also used.) Borrowings from ballet and modern dance were the logical next phase; they're now so prevalent in Spanish dance that an artist who integrates them well, such as Belen Maya, is often not readily thought of as a flamenco fusionist.

Where do you draw the line between contemporary and fusion? Fusion seems like contemporary taken to an extreme. Some consider a work a fusion only when the music is as remote as Argentine tangos, Italian opera, or American show tunes on the order of "Singin' in the Rain," all seen in Maria Pages's concerts during her recent tours.

Flamenco nuevo can be an element of fusion or stand on its own. It distills (some would say dumbs down) flamenco to its most percussive element, zapateado, or footwork, often accompanied by a musician who beats out rhythms on a cajon--literally, a box. As with fusion, structure, dance subcategories, and gender differences are blurred. The form has some accomplished exponents, including Eva "La Yerbabuena" and prodigy Nino de los Reyes, 15, who aptly explained the novelty. "We can play more with the compas," he said, referring to the foundation of all flamenco, the eight- or twelve-count musical phrase that Matteo also calls a rhythmic cycle. Many, however, would agree with Mariana Maduell, an American veteran of Antonio, Ciro, and Rafael de Cordoba's companies. "It's awful to my eye and ear," she said, "too much foot noise, not enough style in the upper body. The contratiempo [counter-rhythm] goes on and on past boredom."

According to Maria Mercedes Leon, vice president of Spain's Association of Dance Professionals, no one claims authorship of flamenco nuevo, and she credits its appearance to the dizzyingly high standard of dance in Spain today. "There was an excess of technique," she suggests, "a technique crisis, and the necessity to show it off."

Leon traces her flamenco pedigree through her late mother and her father, who danced and taught as Mercedes and Albano; to her maternal grandfather, Frasquillo, maestro to Antonio, Enrique el Cojo, Jose de Udaeta, Jose Greco, Manolo Vargas, and Luisillo, among others; and to her maternal grandmother, the legendary dancer-choreographer La Quica. Along with her Spanish following, Leon has inherited a loyal international clientele who make the pilgrimage to Madrid to study La Quica's legacy. Nonetheless, she revealed, "We've had some hard years because new students saw no relationship between what they were learning in class and what they saw onstage."