It had been a long time since I'd seen tears shed on stage, in a show. flamenco.
It's true that an artist doesn't have to do it. Their emotion must be convincing, but it's not obligatory that the pain of losing a mother in a seguiriya, for example, or the desolation of a taranto, be experienced firsthand. A flamenco singer must be, in this sense, a competent actor. And yet, sometimes that emotion takes hold and is transmitted. It travels in both directions, circulating from the stage to the audience and back, making us participants in a truth that may not be our own, but that we feel as if it were. Raising goosebumps, altering our breathing, stimulating our tear ducts.
It happened this Friday in Cádiz, in a packed Merced CenterThe poster indicated that three female voices were going to share their art in a performance titled Cante of womanaccompanied by just a couple of musicians. An extremely simple set design – a black curtain, a table with a bottle of chamomile wine – suggested that the focus would fall exclusively, as the title indicated, on the three protagonists.
They began taking turns singing lullabies, from the lullaby of the Marelu to the one of the big horse of Camarón and those of the onion of Miguel Hernández, to continue with tangos and tientos with a great Pilar La Gineta mastering the timing and showing remarkable interpretive solidity, which he accompanies with an imposing figure.
Naike PonceAlways charismatic and full of energy, she then took the baton with some particularly lively bulerías from Cádiz, performed standing up, complete with her signature footwork. Until that moment arrived, the lull in which Theresa Hernandez, a young and very promising flamenco singer from La Línea, conjured the mystery of emotion – that which some call duende, pellizco or in any other imaginative way—so that the magic would work.
"The farewell with a bulería, everyone on their feet as the audience would soon be, put the finishing touch on a proposal that came wrapped in a certain rhetoric of emancipation and female empowerment, which we think is very good, but which in the end was defended much better by way of good work without labels, which is sometimes the shortest path to the heart."
Hernández picked up the guitar, which he also plays superbly, and began to play a petenera, his voice weaving beautiful melismas, before finishing with a farruca of extraordinary sweetness and delicacy. Then tears welled up, on Teresa's face and on the faces of many of those present. Slow, silent, without fanfare. It was a moment before the unanimous and thunderous applause.
A colleague in the press alerted me some time ago to the potential of this woman from Cádiz, now living in Madrid, and I had already had the opportunity to enjoy her talent several times. But at La Merced, I became completely convinced that she is a personality destined for great things. flamencoSeeing her accompanied by two veterans, drawing inspiration from them and spurring them on at the same time, was an added pleasure.
The show continued with a percussion intro by David Gavira combining hand and brush, which marked a jazzy rhythm to tackle the series of romances: the one of Count Sol (Where did Teresa get that booming voice from?), the one from the Christian captive (magnificent La Gineta, growing in stature by the moment), the Candy vendor's call by Naike Ponce, who knows very well how to lift the spirits of the audience, and the nun's proclamation As a final touch, once again in charge of Teresa Hernández.
Just one hour was enough to make an excellent tour of canteThey are of a traditional style, from an appreciable variety of registers and aesthetics, but harmonized in the final result. The farewell with a bulería, everyone on their feet as the audience would soon be, put the finishing touch on a proposal that came wrapped in a certain rhetoric of emancipation and female empowerment, which we think is very good, but which in the end was defended much better by way of good work without labels, which is sometimes the shortest path to the heart.
Credits
Cante of womanby Naike Ponce, Pilar La Gineta and Teresa Hernández
Cadiz Cycle is Flamenco
Centro Flamenco La Merced of Cádiz
April 24th 2026
CanteNaike Ponce, Pilar La Gineta and Teresa Hernández
Guitar: Daniel Bommatti
Percussion: David Gavira
