The art of flamenco has been so stretched, twisted and merged with other theatrical, musical and dance forms in recent years that it is refreshing to get back to a show that just exudes flamenco puro but nonetheless not simply as if in a tablao but still embedded within spectacular theatrical entertainment. Mercedes de Córdoba and her outstanding ensemble prove in Sí, quiero (Yes, I want) that flamenco doesn’t need to be led by the avant garde in order to be fresh, vibrant and thoroughly enjoyable. A sustained standing ovation from the whole audience was testament to that. Sadler’s Wells could have kept the curtain up for another ten minutes and I’m sure that the applause would have continued unabated.
Incidentally, the star's stage name is simply Mercedes of Córdoba, the city of her birth, in 1980. Her real name is Mercedes Ruiz Munoz, and it comes as no surprise to learn that this sublime artist has been immersed in flamenco since she was a toddler.
The show was a highlight of the Seville Biennial last autumn and it was an exciting prospect when announced for this year’s London Flamenco Festival. The astonishing performance by Mercedes de Córdoba and her superb entourage of four stunning bailaoras and a clutch of tremendous musicians managed to even exceed those expectations.
Si, quiero is described in the programme as “A reaffirmation of the act of wanting”, and it was themed around the rituals of marriage, ambiguously in places but most obviously in the wedding feast that formed the basis for the show’s penultimate number Yeli, Yeli. This was choreographed in collaboration with Manuel Liñan where (in true Liñan style) comedy, innovation and acute social observation flowed alongside the flamenco performance.
Earlier in the show the four support bailaoras, Águeda Saavedra, María Carrasco, Cristina Soler and María Reyes, had appeared, after Mercedes de Córdoba’s dancing, as a kind of mirror to her performance but in the tangos and rumbas of Yeli Yeli they were bridesmaids or wedding guests, getting comically drunk while they partied. Their use of the wedding banquet's cutlery and chopsticks as percussive instruments was cleverly contrived with the women keeping time alongside the rhythms of Paco Vega and Jose Manuel ‘El Oruco’.
Considered to be one of this generation’s most authentic bailaoras, Mercedes de Córdoba epitomises the purest traditions of flamenco in her steely, urgent, rhythmic footwork, synthetic upper body flexibility and her elite technique with el mantón (the fringed shawl) and bata de cola (layered dresses with long trains), essential costumes in any bailaora’s wardrobe. This artistry found several pinnacles of achievement, none more so than in her arresting delivery of the soleá (the third sequence on the programme) with her dance completely aligned to the powerful singing of Enrique ‘El Extremeño’ and the elegant, lyrical and often tender guitar-playing of her musical director, Juan Campallo. Other highlights came with the Olvidadas number and its sublime mix of seguiriya, taranto and petenera, accentuated by the commendable, fluttering castanets expertly employed by Saavedra while she danced.
Perhaps the most extraordinary achievement of Sí, quiero was the alchemy of giving the large Sadler’s Wells stage and auditorium the intimacy of the tablao, drawing us into this unique world of flamenco performance, just as if we were the audience at Corral de la Morería in Madrid (the world’s most famous flamenco tablao). The deep but sensitive singing of Pepe de Pura opened the show and was also to the fore when the star danced the milonga on a table (another tradition of the tablao) to his cante.
In so many ways this was more than simply a show. It was a masterclass covering all the subtleties in the art of flamenco. At the extended curtain call, when Mercedes de Córdoba knelt and bent down to kiss the stage it seemed to be a cipher for the love of flamenco itself. Critics usually don’t join in standing ovations but for a few moments I ceased to be a critic and was just a fan like everyone else.
