This 2024 that is already coming to an end has been the year of two commemorations that have marked the calendar of the flamencos. It's been ten years since he left us. Big Boss, the best of the 20th century and the first years of the 21st century, and twenty have passed since another great of the art left, who brought the dance flamenco to all corners of the planet during half a century of tireless career. Both were the best “brand Spain” that one could dream of, ambassadors of great luxury for a country that has fallen into decline due to so many experts in confronting forgetful peoples who roam freely around the bull's skin. Without forgetting that it was also the centenary of the birth of The Pearl of Cadiz and Porrina from Badajoz, let me dedicate this last article of the year to Paco y Antonio.
The guitar and the dance, both are the same. The two disciplines whose reason for being is to embrace the cante, faithful squires of the most profound art that humanity has ever been able to forge. With anvil and hammer, going through hell and high water, surviving in the country that best knows how to adore the achievements of others while vehemently despising its own. As the giant of Albaicín said, “it is a miracle that we are alive.”
The first, since childhood, gave himself body and soul to his passion, playing. Hiding his shyness behind the sonanta, he knew how to extract the best fruits from the musical instrument. No one until then had the talent and ability to play it with the necessary mastery to achieve the highest levels of expression, as had never been achieved before, with all due respect of course to the great masters who preceded him, who were also the mirrors in which the young genius, an immeasurable figure of Andalusian art, looked at himself.
The other, who as he said came to this through hunger, had the best teacher, Mrs. Pilar, which was also of Farruco, Guito y Mario Maya, who when they were almost children incorporated them into his ballet. The sister of Incarnates 'La Argentinita'What a clinical eye that chick had. Because, it must be said, our two beloved friends and teachers were chicks. Which shows, once again, that although saying flamenco that is to say cante Gypsy, its interpreters may even come from a town in the Alicante region of Medio Vinalopó named Elda, like our hero dancer. A versatile dancer who knew how to play all the palos expressing his excellence with the espadrille, the slipper or the shoe, the three blessed footwear of our national dances. He wore all three with the respect due to the people who knew how to build a universal language by moving their skeleton as dictated by the canons of a thousand-year-old culture recognized throughout the world.
«With hammer and anvil, going through hell and back, surviving in the country that best knows how to adore the achievements of others while vehemently despising its own. As the giant of Albaicín said, we are alive by a miracle»
The first one formed the taco chasing the dream of elevating flamenco guitar to the place that, according to him, it deserved. And he did not stop until he achieved it, he did not stop for a moment in his life in order to reach that goal, winning the race by a long shot, leaving everyone speechless, breathless. And he pulled the cart until his enormous heart said enough and left us orphans. We are left with his magnificent work, and the memories of a life of unconditional dedication to the culture of his people, elevating it to levels hitherto unsuspected.Let's be serious, until his arrival, the guitar, although in the hands of Montoya, the one from Huelva, Sabicas or Ricardo took off like a rocket positioning itself in the music scene in a place of honor, it was Mambrú who sweated the jersey until the last minute establishing himself as the "pichichi", to make a simile with one of his hobbies.
The other also worked from the bottom, from a goal in the Entrevías neighborhood, in the Madrid district of Puente de Vallecas, the desire to achieve, not a dream, since in his case it was more of a mission, a duty, acting in such a way that a dance militiaman, an art worker, a cultural worker, as he liked to say, and managed to put the ethics of dance above aesthetics, following the teachings of his teacher. In his long artistic life he left us a handful of works, today classics of the Spanish choreographic repertoire, which is known by those who cover a lot. He was not the most prolific but he was the most careful and responsible. I never take my eye off him, like an imperial eagle, for a reason his relatives called him the Bird, on a job well done, taking care of the details to unimaginable extremes, like a goldsmith of dance, step by step, beat by beat and verse by verse.
Both were, without intending to, teachers of teachers. Their respective legacies are now forever among the most exquisite of the national culture. Despite the disdain of the Power, which always forgets the best, but well, we are where we are, and if it were not so this would not be Spain, but any other country. It is in our DNA, to give honors to those who do not deserve them and leave the true architects of great culture in the background. Pájaro said that it is the politicians who should be aware of who makes culture and who does not, in Instead of being the artists, as unfortunately happens, the ones who have to go after them almost begging for alms. But here is another element that our remembered teachers shared: both fought relentlessly for their independence, never succumbed to the honey of success and never accepted invitations, some poisoned, from the powerful to take advantage of the situation, to have their photo taken and profit from their talent. Never. Their entire career is marked by their own successes, hand-made, they were true artisans of music and dance, at the box office, supporting entire families, touring the world with their troupes in the old style.
They were good friends, they worked together at the beginning of their careers, they always kept the flame of friendship alive, and they met again when their busy careers allowed it. There was one last meeting in Japan and the image of the two of them in their yukata toasting with sake still comes to mind. Francisco Sanchez Gomez y Antonio Esteve RodenasMay God have them in his glory.
