Israel Galván says that when he dresses and does his hair as a woman for his celebrated El amor brujo, he looks like his mother. The piece, which premiered before the pandemic, is recovered on the 13th and 14th at the Mercat de les Flors, followed on the 15th and 16th by his most recent Mellizo doble, co-creation with El Niño de Elche.
“I approach the tradition of Brujo Love through mutation –says Israel Galván–. Because for me, that score is very familiar, I've danced it since I was a child and I remember it like running pa'llá, like running away from gypsy ghosts. But here I approach through the mutation made by the Japanese choreographer Kazuo Ōno, taking a dancer like Argentina. And we also make the music that Manuel de Falla himself ruled out. Let's say that we make the failures of Falla too”.
For Galván, the prevailing discourse in traditional flamenco has given him a foothold and has been good for this piece, in which he steals “the energy of women”. “They said about Carmen Amaya that she danced like a man, and no, what happens is that she is a strong woman. They said, for example, about Mario Maya, my teacher, 'he dances like a woman', and no, what happens is that he is an elegant man. Or Antonio el Bailarín, who danced very feminine, and what he did was move his hips very well. That is the speech I put to the test. And it's not that I want to dance like a woman, but to be a woman, and there you have to dance in another way. That is the journey. It's serious. It is not a transformation. On stage, that's where the truth is, because there you can't lie,” he points out.
About the origin of Mellizo doble , he says that it was commissioned by a traditional tablao in Japan. "I thought, well, look, we're going to call Niño de Elche to see what he comes up with," he explains. We got on the plane, we weren't even sitting together. But that's how we did it. And in the tablao/restaurant, neither the cooks nor the diners dared to make any noise. In short, it is a pas de deux for two that we come from the flamenco tradition. And Paco [Francisco Contreras] is a fearless person, that's why we're twins. And we are twice as many, because he dances too and I make noise”, he comments on the piece that had very good reviews at the Avignon Festival”.
The Mercat is also showing this weekend À vue , by Toujours Après Minuit. The choreographer Roser Montlló and the actress Brigitte Seth are two men who become women on stage, thus questioning the issue of gender and identities. "With minimal changes we are perfectly men, which makes me think that this gender thing is a lie," says Seth.
