Antigona Flamenca is back for another run through January 28, 2017 in New York. It turns out to be a timely engagement.
"Antigona Flamenca"
"Antigona Flamenca"
Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca
 |
| Soledad Barrio as Antigona Photo by Zarmik Moqtaderi |
Whether to go
along with the tyrant in power, or risk your life defying his whims, is the
argument between two sisters – and the first high point
of this fiery flamenco version of Sophocles’ Antigone.
Antigone – or Antigona, in Spanish -- cannot bear to see the body of her brother Polyneices left to rot on the battlefield, where he and his brother Eteocles slew each other battling for power in
The two sisters confront each other with electric foot-stamping and acrobatic turns -- the power of Ismene’s conventional thinking against the lonely righteousness of Antigone. And of course it is Ismene who survives, who slides back into the chorus, observing the woes that befall others.
Few dancers can match the intensity of Soledad Barrio’s flamenco, but Marina Elana as Ismene takes a good shot at it, following up a devastating monologue in English (“I’m bilingual,” she simpers) in which she bitches about her sister’s self-sacrifice. It is the viciousness of her bile, combined with the cowardice of her position, that makes the tragedy credible, and contemporary. Mean girls rule.
That’s true, of course, only in the short term, and in what we call the “real world.” In the ideal, eternal world where Greek tragedy takes place, Antigone is the heroine, larger than life, greater than death. And this is where Soledad Barrio comes in.
Flamenco is not usually a narrative art, and Barrio is not an actress. She has only one spoken line in the show – which relies on dance, song and mime to tell the story. But she embodies Antigone – her staccato stomping, whirling turns, deep back bends, her desperate facial expression conveying everything the character represents. Antigone is a heroine for our times – a woman standing up against injustice in a world ruled by arrogant men.
“Antigona” is the brainchild of Barrio’s husband and collaborator, Martin Santangelo, clearly a bid to vault Noche Flamenca from the small world of flamenco into the great stage of theater. It’s an inspired choice of material, and he has a brilliant collaborator in Lee Breuer, director of the experimental theater company Mabou Mines. Breuer is a master of stagecraft – and here he uses shimmering fabrics, masks, and dark, dramatic lighting on a multi-level stage to create the atmosphere of tragedy. Tiresias, the blind prophet, sings from a platform high above the main arena, until he comes down to confront Creon at the end – denouncing him for his pride, scorning his empty put-downs. This mano a mano between Manuel Gago as Creon and Pepe el Bocadillo as Tiresias is a battle in song, the high-pitched wail of flamenco singing, with a tattoo of percussion and flamenco guitar in the background. Noche Flamenca begins with music, the elegant chords and subtle syncopations of guitar, hand-clapping and hand-drumming under the keening vocals.
Why, some may wonder, is the company called Noche Flamenca, not Flamenco? The simple answer is that noche is feminine in Spanish, and takes a feminine adjective. But the real reason is that this is a company organized around a woman. By sheer force of will, Barrio makes flamenco a feminine art form. For men it tends to turn into a macho trip – for example, the deafening zapaterea of Juan Ogalla as Antigone’s doomed lover Haeman. There’s pride in his protest, unlike the soulful Barrio, who finds power in a powerless character.
No mere description will do justice
to Soledad Barrio’s dancing. “She’s a force of nature!” was the best a fellow
near us could do, repeating it several times.
That’s true, but she’s also a force of humanity. Noche Flamenca’s program notes always include
Santangelo’s “Brief History of Flamenco” which traces its beginnings to
southern Spain in
the 15th to 17th centuries. It was a time of persecutions, exterminations,
and expulsions, – and he quotes a historian: “If we do not relate the music …
to brutality, repression, fear, hunger, menace, inferiority, resistance and
secrecy, then we shall not find the reality of flamenco … it is a storm of exasperation
and grief.”
When I first
read Antigone, long ago in school, it seemed like too big a fuss over a dead
body. But now I know -- and anyone can
see it in Soledad Barrio’s Antigona -- that it’s a battle for civilization.
“All legitimate art is protest – a demand for
a more human world."
Copyright 2015 by Tom Phillips
No comments:
Post a Comment