The Mistela of 2025 has started. It was time to award the Flamenco Venice to the dance. And the choice couldn't have been more appropriate. I reiterate that Juan Thomas de la Molia He is the best dancer of his generation, even though he has raised a storm of controversy on other occasions. After the heartfelt gloss of Manuel Curao to the young man from Trebujena and the obligatory protocolary acts in which the mayor of Los Palacios also participated Juan Manuel Valle, Christopher Ortega, Director of Andalusian Institute of Flamenco, Carmen Herrera, secretary of the Flamenco Gathering The Well of Sorrows, and Enrique Duque, President of the peña, the curtain was raised to concentrate on the stage of the Pedro Perez Fernandez Municipal Theatre From the Sevillian town of Los Palacios (Seville), quintals of new art, of the package. So that we can complain about flamenco youth later.
Juan Tomás has the rhythm of bulería in his veins. His father was responsible for tattooing it on his mother's belly with gentle taps during the nine moons they spent in the skies of Trebujena while a flamenco dancer with a capital F grew within her. And the little creature loved it so much that he kicked when his father arrived late and didn't give him his dose of rhythm. He became his second heartbeat. And there he is, ladies and gentlemen, sweeping the floors he treads. Because "dancing has always made me happy." And we're here to see how you enjoy it, Juan Tomás.
Vertebrate It is an apparently simple work that under the artistic direction of the renowned dancer and choreographer Manuel Linan He unravels for an entire hour a constant tribute to bulería and what it means. palo for the artists on the poster. Although it premiered with a different cast, due to work circumstances of those who started its journey, it is sometimes reconfigured with other voices and musicians, as happened this Friday, October 10 at La Mistela, where we were able to enjoy the cante dark, tasty and broken Manuel de la Nina, with his usual soniquetazo and the self-confidence that draws him, hand in hand with the tanned throat of hot metals of John of the Maria and the sublime guitar of John Campallo –just for the bulerías that he performed– that raised the show to unsurpassed levels of brilliance with the musicality that he brings to the cypress from the first string to the bass and from the bridge to the headstock. He wove into the intricacies of the bajañí the mysteries that call to the spirit of the pellizcos to captivate, caress, or scratch, leaving the audience reeling every time his fingers touch the strings. Just as Juan Tomás also reeled us in, ingratiating and playful, full of age and mischief, brimming with nuances, resources, and technique, over the top in the rhythm, brimming with grace and emotion... he was a hit.
"Juan Tomás, flirtatious and playful, full of age and mischief, brimming with nuances, resources, and technique, over the top in rhythm, brimming with grace and emotion... he was a hit."
Four chairs and a guitar. This is how the stage looked like, anticipating the exit. In rhythm, on their haunches, with their feet, with their knuckles on the ground, alternating between the different postures, the tribute to the bulería began. The alianda of The Paquera, the tribilitrabi of PerrateLebrija, Jerez, Seville, Utrera… And the party began. They started posing, dancing with energy and grace, and making gestures. flamencos. And little by little the matter was heated up to remember the great masters of the palo, revering them with memory, making bulería a cante big, the cante By right, the dance par excellence, beyond the hackneyed pataíta de venta. Which is all very well, but it's only a limited, simplistic, gimmicky, and unfair view of bulería, as Juan Tomás was able to demonstrate with the accompanying music.
Romances and corrios of El Puerto, bulerías arromanzás… to the sound of a constant heartbeat and the "good, good, good!" continued with the inexcusable nod to the makings of Fernando of La Morena, a mano a mano of the singers evoking the bohemian echoes of Luis de la Pica, the concessions to The Cake, to the couplets, to the land of the mustachones and the Lebrija region, the anecdotes of the singers who from all four corners came together to meet and enjoy the warmth of the bulería, differentiating the colors that come from one side and the other, the little turns of each of the guiyabaores, even that of Campallo, whom I had never seen give a kick. "And it's that every time I hear a bulería I get a feeling in my body that..." Thus María's man felt the creeps and they pushed each other until they reached the ecstasy of the party where sorrows and joys converged. Through bulerías, everything goes in.
Short, quick and captivating, slow with soft pickups and heartfelt flourishes, powerful footwork and wheelbarrows, arm movements standing still, ass shaking, the jacket moving well, swaying with substance, the body disfigured or the counterpoint in elegance, mockery and fun, enjoyment and company, the hubbub… everyone participates. Campallo, de la María and de la Nina dance, Juan Tomás croons and plays the guitar… The humor here does not clash with the cante and the dance. Salsa that brings it all together. And for dipping. That's bulería.
Credits
Dance recital by Juan Tomás de la Molía
Festival Flamenco of Mistela 2025
Pedro Perez Fernandez Municipal Theatre
The Palaces, Seville
10th October 2025
Dance: Juan Tomás de la Molía
CanteManuel de la Nina and Juan de la María
Guitar: Juan Campallo
Artistic direction: Manuel Liñán
Presenter: Manuel Curao
