Understanding the context and influence of Lebrija in the flamenco It's not easy if you haven't known and lived through its golden age, a time that provides the values, ideas, and feelings that, ultimately, lend credibility to proposals like 'Lebrisah', a Muslim term coined by the undersigned at this time, which has nothing to do with the core of the piece, which, on the contrary, focuses on that Gypsy Lebrija that allows the claims and contents of the to be verified flamenco in Lower Andalusia.
This show is directed by Curro Vargas, son of Concha Vargas and Rafael Doblas, and premiered on May 24, 2025, in Lebrija, and later, in the middle of the following month, in Seville, landing in the Jerez Festival Thanks to the leading role of Concha Vargas herself, who is the muse and the benchmark of the gypsy dance of Lebrija, and the voice of Ines Bacán, which is the sung connection with the resonances of Fernanda the Old y Juan Funi.
Quintin and Bastián's daughters are, according to their birthplace, the poem that relates the land to emotions, the territory to sensations, and family experiences to the outside world, highlighting its colors, shapes, and textures, as if Concha and Inés were embracing a martinete like when old gypsies presented their credentials.
The presentation is not an excuse, it is the prelude to the vital memories of the protagonists through soleá, launched in search of those privileged moments that are obliged to survive oblivion, where body language not only provokes allegories, but makes them part of the ritual.
But the space becomes misty, knowing that we are approaching the glow of the afternoon. And there lies the romance of Concha Vargas. In the hearts of the spectators, a void opens up, a burning emptiness. She is the dancer who evokes a soundless silence, the one who restores the art of her unique sister Carmen to its familiar embrace, and the one who returns us to what we have lived.
"Lebrisah, a proposal that addresses the free will of what it represents, that links from the rivers of Curro Vargas's tuning fork, those peculiar forms that feel the fire that reverberates in the pupils of Lebrija, and that are nothing more than the last drop of a dance that we absorb mixed in a voice of weeping"
With Concha Vargas, the imagination returns to the violin notes heard at the Venta del Caparrós in the early days of 1781, to that eighteenth-century dance of the zarabanda, which we now extrapolate to that gypsy spirit of the swerve and movement, to that singular way of dancing to the cante, which is the credential that our protagonist knew from the calm of the cradle of childhood and which in the scenic event stirs the memories that cry out in her memory.
But the fact that Concha is Quintín's daughter, and Quintín is the godfather of Bastián Bacán, Inés's father, creates a fundamental space for the development of relationships, where values are cultivated and affective bonds between its members are strengthened.
I associate this connection with romance, the dance that stops time in Lebrija, the defining characteristic that feeds on the same essence as the sung soleá, that mystery that intoxicates with the white wine of dawn and cuts through the walls of the wind. It is the essence of the blessed land where they were born. Diego el Lebrijano, Juaniquín de Lebrija, Pinini, Funi Viejo or El Chozas de Jerez.
There are resounding sorrows in Inés Bacán's throat. Vague tremors appear in the martinete. The soleá shines from an honest soul. She peers through the prism of youth into the bitterness of the seguiriya, and her throat is a crater of fantasies in the lullaby, leading us to the corollary of an expressive discourse of uncertain smoothness, with melismas on the path to chimeras and local verses in which the gold of memories merges with the treasure of echoes.
On afternoons earned by the sorrow before the hopeful night, 'Lebrisah' has been linked, a proposal that addresses the free will of what it represents, that links from the rivers of Curro Vargas's tuning fork, those peculiar forms that feel the fire that reverberates in the pupils of Lebrija, and that are nothing more than the last drop of a dance that we absorb mixed in a voice of weeping, the one that formulates the same verses of cante that we retain in our experiences, but with a different soul.
Credits
Lebrisahby Concha Vargas and Inés Bacán
XXX Jerez Festival
Blas Infante Social Center
February 23th 2026
Dance: Concha Vargas
Cante: Inés Bacán
Guitars: Curro Vargas and Antonio Moya
Double bass: Gal Maestro
Cante y palmasJuan Juanelo and Moi from Morón
