Isreal Galván: After Picasso, a new Spanish genius transforms an art-form: 'Arena' - Flamenco As Never Imagined

How many people are so remarkable that they reshape an art form?

In music, in painting, in dance, in film; in any sphere - there are really very few. But those few, those artists with an obvious 'genius' are worth our attention whatever our tastes or interests. Israel Galván is one of the few. 

Galván's art is Flamenco, but not as ever conceived before. Flamenco, even as it is made popular and promoted, has been in trouble, being either stuck or diluted: A contradiction frozen in formal delivery or laced into spectacular but ultimately meaningless fusions.

Galván is neither frozen nor compromised, he ripped himself free of the mold set by a traditional Flamenco family, satirized his way to the extreme edge of performance art referencing Dali, Bunuel & Picasso, and then turned back to drive deep into the heart of the Flamenco tradition and electrify it. In an irony of language, Galván has gavanised his art.

The eleventh Festival de Jerez concluded this last week and Galván took the honour of 'mejor espectaculo' of the main stage - the Teatro Villamarta. This in itself was something; I had last seen Galván in New Mexico¹ - in a small setting with minimal lighting and accompaniment - he was outstanding then, but how could he transform his quick dance statements to a large venue in a long, sustained main auditorium performance? Galván managed to pull it off, just about - with a brilliantly conceived, far-reaching show embracing, as great art often does, the personal within the apparent impersonal, social and political themes.

"Galván has something to say", commented a friend, a key reason for his significance and also one of the primary issues for the rest of Flamenco: They might have said, "Galván has something new to say", because in Flamenco many artists either have nothing to say, or have only the traditional laments and love songs to repeat.

What's wrong with that? What's wrong with unspoiled gypsy folk song? Nothing, to my mind, until it is removed from a club setting and set upon a vast stage where only a fraction of the audience can be said to be 'involved' with the performance. The festival organisers, showing some balls, actually closed the Jerez festival with Manolete and guitar accompaniment. Manolete has no frills, he just sings - marvelously, he's one of the very best, and he's fun too, but after 30 minutes many of the audience were clapping politely, after an hour they were bored or were leaving (an odd sight juxtaposed against the wild applause of knowledgeable enthusiasts seeming to clap them away). 

It seems to be an insurmountable situation: Performances in small venues cannot bring in sufficient cash to sustain a festival, while the main stages need to serve up the faire for wealthy tourists who don't want to know too much, but do want to be entertained.

Even obvious, proven talents such as Eva Yerbabuena were criticised at the 4^th Sadler's Wells (UK) festival in February for delving into experimental dance, inset with ballet motives, yet having to fall back to set-piece flamenco dance routines (otherwise - is it Flamenco?) and 'squadron' formations. No doubt the disaffected members of the Jerez audience would have preferred Yerbabuena or a spectacular dance show with an excess of musicians - some with 'interesting' instruments - and only brief 'Pavoratti moments' from the vocalists. The problem with the big flash shows is that they are empty vessels, Flamenco is a tradition that should stem from the soul, based on socialising, song (cante), accompaniment (palmas/guitar) and lastly dance (baile) that is spontaneous and in response to the song. The order is significant. The big stage shows are so much frocks, fluff and frenetic feet; the dreadful use of flutes, harps and such brings to mind the dreary fusions of 70's rock/jazz; and the alternative sparing modernist shows (invariably hiding behind Lorca's prose) are usually appallingly amateur and outdated.

Galván blows all these dilemmas away.

Performing alongside a great singer such as Terremoto, accompanied by Lagos (left) he allows the song to lead and responds with his innovative, lightning fast or still-life quips and sarcasms of dance accordingly. On the big stage at Jerez² he swept away the lack- lustre memories of fusions and frills to challenge the audience directly: here were carcases of beef hanging from the roof, here a huge video screen with the bull-ring audience projected and a lone cantaor (Enrique Morente) lamenting vulnerability, the crowd's mood, the inevitability of defeat with victory; and especially the intertwined nature of each to each. The theatre audience is the bull ring audience, which is society; the bull is the victim, or the performer; the bullfighter is another victim, who must perform, as must the dancer; the event is part of life, is fabric. 

The video occasionally zooms in on Morente - a 20 metre high face has impact even on the big stage.

But more than the expertise and vision that is portrayed with rare selectivity, is the individual genius that clatters forth from Galván's performance amid the scenes and musical backdrops - the man as the bull smashing barriers; the man as the torredor in a fight of wits; the man as just flash, as show off. Everything works at many levels, as self-criticism, as cynicism of the Flamenco world and traditions (as sold out or not), as social-political commentary, and with perhaps an ultimate irony, as pure entertainment.

In Flamenco the forces of commercialism in the service of Spanish tourism, have run conveniently beside the fortunes of many of the gypsy families who latch onto the fame and control with clannish entrenchment and abandoned principle. Flamenco can be like any other cultural commodity.

Galván faces up to all of this, and cuts swathes through the pap to reassert the core value, the 'puro', in a dramatically original way: His achievement threatens not only to breathe new life into Flamenco, but begins to transform the art form from within; even to rescue Flamenco from itself.

Israel Galván - if you ever have the chance, seek him out.

<sub>1 Festival Flamenco Internacional de Alburquerque, 2006

2 "ARENA", con la colaboración especial de Enrique Morente (en vídeo), Diego Carrasco, la charanga Los Sones y la Ensemble de Percusión de Andalucía.</sub>