Israel Galván - A Negro Producciones

With:
Israel Galván, dance
Sylvie Courvoisier, piano
Inés Bacán, voice
Bobote, compás (rhythm accompaniment)
In 1924, in the theatre La Courbe, Paris, Vicente Escudero presented to the world a most singular
experience. In what would be one of his most daring shows, he mixed together under the banner
of cubism anything from a number dedicated to “Foot-ball” to his famous tap dance imitating the
sound of a pyramid of chairs falling to the ground. In the number named La Courbe, he announced,
with a certain commercial cunning, the jazz dance with which Josephine Baker would gain great
success by the end of the year. What Escudero actually danced is a real enigma. We only know
from the descriptions that he used a banjo sound box as a “cajón” – the percussion instrument so
widely used in flamenco so many years later.
Following on from Tabula Rasa – an experiment in the temporal synchronisation of music, in which
the traditional flamenco triad of voice, instrument and dance were presented separately and on
their own, Israel Galván now wants to enter into another empty space. There is a common texture
between the lonely and nearly atonal singing of Inés Bacán and the invigorating qualities of Sylvie
Courvoisier’s solo piano. There is a touch of vibrato which identifies the primitive voice with the
vanguard piano. Israel Galván tries to evoke an entrance alone into this tense space. Alone, each of
the two ladies – and it is important that they are ladies – will tighten her strings in order to fill the
space with vibrations. Maybe at times we can even hear the old banjo sound box that will evoke
the memory of Escudero. Deleuze said that any vibrating space curves, bends and folds up. Here in
this spatial fold is where Israel Galván now wants to dance.
Tabula Rasa was a real exercise in starting again from absolute scratch, wiping away all previous
processes and polishing. Now that the slate is so completely clean, a simple drawing can be traced
– a curve. With La Curva, Israel Galván wants to continue redefining the roots of his flamenco
vocabulary, starting from square one, stripping himself of all his wisdom right before our very
eyes.
Pedro G. Romero