Only art can make of tragedy an enjoyable occasion. “Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding), a tragedy written by renowned Spanish poet and writer Federico Garcia Lorca, opened at the Cairo Opera House’s Main Hall on Wednesday through the taps and claps of flamenco dancers of Spain’s Antonio Gades Company.
The Company, part of the Antonio Gades Foundation that safeguards the legacy of the dancer and choreographer, also presented a “Suite Flamenca, a collection of flamenco solos, duets and group dances which were shaped by Gades in the 60s.
“Bodas de Sangre was first staged for ballet by Gades in 1974, marking a significant step for Spanish dance. It has subsequently become a classic, staged by many dance companies in Europe.
“Blood Wedding begins with an old woman at center-stage, joined by her son dressing up as a groom. As she helps dress her son, the mother discovers a knife and pleads him not to carry it. Playfully, the son capers around, cuts a fruit off a plant with it and presents it to the mother. The mother accepts the fruit, but still flings the knife away.
In the next scene, a young mother sings a lullaby to her baby. As her man arrives, she makes advances towards him, but he wrenches himself free. Each motion – such as the wife approaching her husband – is delivered in three consequent repetitions in flamenco, heightening the drama. So, when the husband flings the wife on the ground in the final struggle, she slaps the ground and rises and takes the baby away.
With the husband still standing onstage, the possible cause of tension is revealed: another woman dressed in white, the husband’s former lover. They dance together revealing an unfulfilled love, as they lightly hold hands at one point, or come into a supine pose, her head lying on his lap, and his head over her shoulder.
The man retreats. Alone, the woman is now being offered a bouquet of flowers, which she immediately rejects. When she is given the bouquet again, she accepts and waits passively as she is dressed as a bride.
At the ensuing wedding party, the crowd dances and greets the newlyweds, except for the young lady who previously fought with her husband. Her suspicions are well-founded, as at the wedding dance, the two lovers are again found embracing. The party resumes, but the bride tires and leaves, and the young woman says her husband has fled with the bride. The mother now gives the knife to her son and bids him leave.
The most exciting scene of the ballet is the slow-motion fight in the forest between the groom and the bride s lover. The audience is entwined with the dancers in their narrow misses as they aim to knife each other.
In the finale, as the bride approaches them, both the groom and the lover stab each other, and fall slowly to the ground.
The scene was carefully constructed by the late Gades “to synthesize that pain dances like a man that is going to die and is meeting his death with austerity, without becoming frantic or making a spectacle. As the two men lay dead on the floor, the ballet closes with the bride looking at her blood-stained hands.
The “Suite Flamenca collection comprises the dances with which Gades originally began his solo career in 1963. These eight pieces of traditional flamenco were formed over five years with Gades original style, into the suite presented now. It begins with a group sitting in the far right corner upstage, with two guitarists strumming flamenco tunes (toque), and two singers, and two dancers performing the palmas (rhythmic clapping).
In subsequent pieces came duets in which the man made way for the woman entering the stage with her flourish and ruffles, then entered in a dance of courtship timing his steps to hers, and then finally walked away with her.
The group dances presented the real fiesta with women carrying clackers in their hands. The costumes became more colorful as the ruffles of the white dresses revealed layers of color as the women stomped and turned.
In the final number, one dancer conducted the dancers and musicians, raising his hands to motion to the dancers to clap, then signaling the guitarists to perform, creating a rhythm that rose up to a crescendo of claps and stomps.
The gift of the evening was in the cante (singing), where the three singers of the evening took off on singing impromptu songs by turn.
Each performed vocal feats, either wavering the breath to follow the meanderings of their song, or holding it on a note long enough before taking the next breath. Each was met with feverish applause from the audience.
Starting with the evident skill of the dancers, the evening thus ended by revealing the voices that formed the backbone of the performance.
The event, marking Spain s assumption of the Presidency of the European Union, also revealed the essence of flamenco – where the body with its clapping, slapping of thighs and heels, and its feet-stomping zapateado becomes an instrument of music, following and complementing the guitar.
