This year’s Malta Arts Festival will feature a flamenco performance called Isla, inspired by life on the island. Puerto Flamenco percussionist Andrej Vujicic tells David Schembri all about it.
Flamenco is not simple. It is often a combination of music and dance, each of which are separately identifiable as flamenco in their respective fields, which require technical ability but as well that other ingredient, passion.
The idea of a show being on the lines of an abstract theme as Isla is might raise a few eyebrows
Asked to define it, Andrej Vujicic from Puerto Flamenco evades any description involving rasgueados and nail-studded dancer’s boots, and hones into the heart of the matter: “Miles Davis said flamenco is the only music that brought him to his knees… It is a genre that always surprises me with its depth and authenticity, a music that seems to flow out like clear water out of the depths of the earth, the depths of Andalucia,” the percussionist says from his home in Seville, the epicentre of flamenco culture.
In a few months’ time, Puerto Flamenco, Vujicic’s and his wife Francesca ‘Ċikka’ Grima’s flamenco company, will be stomping and strumming and singing on our shores with a flamenco show called Isla, which is inspired by the concept of an island.
The concept, Serbian-born Vujicic says, is “open to many interpretations”, which include: “the individualisation of our society at large”, “the failing attempts at proving John Donne’s ‘no man is an island’ wrong” and the idea of islands as a sanctuary, a “hidden paradise of abandonment of the self through the art process” and a “lifebelt of the empathic collective trance of flamenco thrown to a shipwrecking civilisation of otherness”. Somewhat inevitably, there will be a piece which pays tribute to Malta, which Ċikka – or La Chica as she is known in the flamenco world - Grima calls home.
People who have been to a flamenco show in Spain will recall being mesmerised by the frantic dancing and playing, but the idea of a show being on the lines of an abstract theme as Isla is might raise a few eyebrows.
Vujicic, who lives and breathes the art form, believes there is a problem of nomenclature within flamenco itself which is confusing to insiders, let alone outsiders: “The recently evolving variety of subgenres within flamenco have not been properly classified yet, and this gives rise to a lot of confusion, disappointment – even fury – among artists and aficionados alike.
“You will often hear the old guys in taverns fighting over what is flamenco and how things are ever changing for the worse.”
In fact, ever since flamenco has moved indoors from the streets and into theatres, there have been attempts to impose narratives to it, often based on the work of Spanish authors, a notable example being Lorca. Recently, as with other artforms, narrative has been abandoned in favour of more abstract concepts, which, Vujicic notes, “often result in over-intellectualised work, with more contemporary dance than flamenco.
“I feel that flamenco is steadily trading its authenticity and essence for virtuosity and technique, its unpolished visceral catharsis for ironic postmodern wit”.
Not keen to abandon the very thing that attracted him and Grima to the genre when still postgraduate students in Sydney, Vujicic says Puerto Flamenco’s approach is to “strive to preserve the visceral, raw authenticity of flamenco, yet provide a contemporary context to the production by the use of stage direction and design”.
He laments that the increasing emphasis on technical virtuosity is robbing the music of its soul and the spirit of oneness that ensues with the music. In fact, the more he speaks of the music, the more it is clear how much he believes in Donne’s vision of a united mankind and how flamenco is a vehicle for this, as he mentions “a merging of fellow souls that purges the self-obsessed mind and obliterates cynicism” while speaking of the spontaneous gatherings of flamenco.
“The mysticism in the rhythm, the primordial in the voice, mind-reading wisdom of the guitar and the overall understanding and oneness experienced as the participants ride one wave of energy after another... This is the flamenco that made us leave everything and come to Seville on a magical honeymoon that has been going on for 14 years,” Vujicic says.
“This is also the flamenco we try to keep alive in our productions. To me, if I don’t feel this connection on stage, or as a member of the audience, I feel let down.
“The challenge for us is to provide a context for this to happen, to find a contemporary and relevant premise that concerns us, and yet direct the production in a way that allows flamenco to happen unhindered by it.”
The focus on the soul of the music allows Puerto Flamenco to expand its repertoire of performers, and this year’s show will feature live ink painting by Patricio Hidalgo, an islander (from Ibiza) himself.
“I met Patricio on rehearsals for another production and we connected in our love for art and flamenco, and have since performed as an unlikely duo of cajon flamenco and live painting in a few festivals with much acclaim,” Vujicic says.
This year’s line up features some of the hottest names in the flamenco circuit, with special guest, singer Encarnita Anillo, being considered by many as one of the best young voices of flamenco, especially for accompaniment of dance.
“The irony is that, as she is gaining prominence, she is moving out of the accompaniment and into her solo career, which is why it is such a privilege to have her in our show. She very rarely accepts this type of work nowadays,” Vujicic says.
The male dancers in the show, Antoñete – the artistic director and principal dancer of El Arenal – and Abel Harana – “one of the few remaining true improvisers” will join La Chica, who is one of the very few foreign dancers invited to work in the tablaos of Seville. They will be dancing to the music of guitarist Rubén Romero and Vujicic himself on the cajon.
On Maltese audiences, he says the people are more conservative in expressing their individuality than in Spain. “I think anyone is less expressive when compared to the Spanish, though. Hence the appeal of flamenco, the emotions stir. People often say they cried during the show or feel elated, moved.
“Flamenco works on many levels but the most important is the visceral one, and that connection happens in Malta,” the percussionist says.
“We have a strong following on the island and are very grateful for it, there is a love for flamenco in Malta that makes us feel fulfilled every time we perform, and for Francesca and myself it is a homecoming that compares to nothing else.”
Isla is happening on July 30 and July 1.
www.maltaartsfestival.org