This year’s motto at the Navarro Flamenco On Fire Festival, held from August 26 to 31, has been “Tandal”, a term taken from the Romantic Traveler George Borrow who, in the 19th century, designated neighborhood courtyards. Known as the importance of these spaces and the ways of life that were developed in the oral transmission of flamenco, the present edition of the event wanted to show the footprint of that inheritance through current artists, which connect one way or another with it, as a way to tell its history. Thus, from its same start, José Valencia acted in Viana, who refers to that line as an heir that is from singing families of Lebrija and Jerez. In Tudela, Esperanza Fernández, reliable representative of the Sevillian neighborhood of Triana would do it.
Arrived in Pamplona, a look at the balcony and courtyards posters reveals an intention that the actions will confirm. Thus, a singer such as the Catalan Duquende made an old song that is alive in his throat. He touched him inaugurate the night cycle and, from the town hall balcony on Thursday morning, he completed his presence with a repertoire of quarries well and faithful to his style. The echo of his admired shrimp, who sponsored him when he was still a child, resonated in La Taranta and Cartagenera and, in a special way, in the tangos, where he remembered the legend (Like water).
The second balcony of that day would be starred by Agujetas Chico, descendant in fourth generation of such an illustrious saga. On Wednesday afternoon he had to open the singing cycle in the Pansequito Space (Ezpeleta Palace), created in this edition. In his recital, which had to be transferred to the Civivox condestable by rain, he was accompanied by his “Tito” Domingo Rubichi (the two start from a common trunk), which has one of the touches of Soniquete more Jerez. Together with Rubichi, Agujetas makes the styles that define his family, while when he sings accompanying himself to the guitar, as he did on the balcony of La Perla, he develops his most personal and creative facet with his own compositions and a renewed musicality. He also knew how to remember his grandfather Manuel for Debla and Toná. Tradition and modernity.
What arrived on Friday from Jerez to the Balcony of the City Council had a storm, but not atmospheric. Tomasa Guerrero La Macanita, Preclara daughter of the Santiago de Jerez neighborhood and heiress of her singing heritage, she was expected. The Plaza Bullía, and she responded to expectations with a overwhelming energy for tangos and, especially, for a long bundle bundle in which she remembered the pack, from which she seemed to have taken her strength, which concluded with the beautiful Bulteries of disarringment, of your second recording. Before, he had started his performance with Jerez continued, topped by the change (My comparison, cuckoo). That same night, in the night cycle of the Hotel 3 Reyes, always accompanied to the Manuel Valencia touch, he would offer a more intimate version of his art with Malaga, long and varied batch of cante by soleares and an affectionate memory of his Fernandito Terremoto, which composed the exciting song See you again.
The newly appointed Pansequito space, in the courtyard of the Palace of Ezpeleta, recovered its open and outdoor condition on Thursday afternoon. From that afternoon until Sunday, the scheduled poster has been offering a splendid sample of relief and continuity in a generation that knows and the canon is his, reinterprets it according to his personal vision and, looking, perhaps, in contemporary classics, as closest mirrors. Sagas are renewed with new voices and experiences, but their protagonists show knowledge, respect and very care when incorporating their contributions, which are diverse according to the inheritance received.
In Ismael de la Rosa The ball and José del Tomato, seems an association with a future. Both enjoy genetic powerful: the singer, that of the Fernández de Triana family; The Tocaor, grandson, nephew and son of the well -known and illustrious Almeria lineage. Recently gathered in the Limbaé project, produced by Josemi Carmona, they offer a fresh product, which transports old essences. A fine versatility in the ball receives the leisurely accompaniment and precise accents of the tomato, and the result is more than satisfactory.
Another distinctive touch, also slow and very striking in its configuration, was that of the young David de Arahal accompanying Manuel de la Tomasa, the last link of a saga that connects with the same Manuel Torre. Always saying sayings with respect and desire to contribute in both disciplines. Esmeralda Rancapino is printed in its name the weight of the lineage from which it comes. Very young, his voice, clear and diaphanous, illuminates the mostly Cadiz styles he interpreted with the touch, this traditional, of Nono Reyes. The Granada singer the turry shares similar values with the previous ones: he is the son of artists and, in his last recording, he wanted to review the work of Morente, his Allegro Soleá. On Saturday he sang from the balcony of La Perla, with the Plaza del Castillo crowded by public. An insufficient sound did not allow to appreciate its qualities and the taste it exhibits singing.
But, in this line of continuity of tradition and its renewal, the festival made its bet perhaps stronger when gathering in the Baluarte Auditorium to the three most demanded women’s voices by the scene of the moment: Lelo Soto, María Earthquake and Ángeles Toledano, the three with very recent recordings. The function, which delayed its start an hour due to technical problems, was called Reset, Playing with the semantic value of the Anglo -Saxon term: a restart that seeks the root. The three start from her and treat her in different ways, as could be seen. A good art, served in separate rooms.
Finally, between the past, the present and the future, the festival, in addition to other initiatives, contains the cycle Flamenco. 21st century. Within him, on Friday night the performance of the Granada Rock Group Los Planetas was scheduled. It was not in the Zentral Sala but in the bastion, and was filled with a audience perhaps faithful to his career, but strikingly passive before the songbook that was presented to them. Rock flag bearers indie Patrio did not seek the refuge of their hymns, they simply offered a concert made to the extent of a flamenco festival, which also has some indie. For more references to phosphorite, Caracol, to Cabal de Silverio, to Pepe that of the midwife Oa Morente, the group’s proposal – with J and Floren, but without Eric’s drums, for example – was tiredly planetary, for more of the flamenco efforts of the incorporated guitarist of the genre Eduardo Espín Pacheco.