Avignon (AFP)
He danced with machines, cats, created pieces inspired by Kafka or on the genocide of the gypsies.
In his latest show, Israel Galvan reconnects with the roots of flamenco, bringing out a new modernity.
The heterodox dancer and choreographer, who has been deconstructing this art for two decades, does not seek to settle down but to renew the codes once again.
With an accomplice: the singer and musician Nino de Elche, considered the enfant terrible of the new flamenco because of his borrowings from electro and rock, and with whom he has already collaborated in "Fiesta" in 2017.
The show, presented in French premiere during "La Semaine d'art" in Avignon, deprived of its festival this summer, is rightly called "Mellizo doble" (double twin), so striking are the similarities between the two artists. : virtuosos who push the limits of their art.
"We realized that on stage, we got along very well ... like twins. All it takes is a look," the 47-year-old Sevillan told AFP.
Both, Galvan before and today from Elche, suffered the wrath of the purists.
In "Mellizo Doble", a show without sets or costumes, they return to the very sources of flamenco, when it was sung "a palo seco" (a cappella), without musical accompaniment.
"We create our own music", explains the dancer.
His "zapateado" (heels clicking on the ground) but also the rubbing of feet on stage, are the main sound accompaniment of the cantaor's voice.
- no a priori -
A refined style that remains offbeat, with movements, a rhythm, which transcend the boundaries of classical flamenco.
"The flamenco of the past connects with the modernity of today's music, like electro", he explains, adding that it is by no means a "provocation".
Israel Galvan, fed on flamenco since childhood thanks to his parents, the dancers José Galvan and Eugenia de los Reyes, needs to "go back to the roots all the time".
"But I need new things to survive dancing; each work changes my way of thinking," says the dancer.
He says he doesn't have a priori: "sometimes an idea comes out of a cartoon or a bad song, I'm very open because it's the only way to do new things".
He who has forged his own language that could be qualified as unclassifiable, remains attached to his bases.
"I am very free, but I cannot present myself as an actor or a performer, I am bailaor".
The desire to renew himself at the end of the 90s was paradoxically born when he won all the major flamenco prizes in his country.
"Then I didn't want that pressure anymore, + to be the best +, to have to dance as if I was in front of the jury all the time", he recalls.
At that time, and since his first show in 1998, he was not "in nobody's field", neither flamenco "tablaos", nor dance programmers.
Does he regret being more recognized abroad than in his own country?
"I think the flamenco world accepted me," smiles the artist who danced in the famous Plaza de toros for the Seville Flamenco Biennale in 2018.
What he regrets, however, is that there are not as many stages in Spain and as many people going to the theater as in France.
"In Spain, you can't live as artists, in France you can. In Spain, you have the choice between leaving or dancing three times a year, it's a country that exports (his talents)," he says.
However, he welcomes new faces like Rosalia, the Spanish Beyonce whose songs straddle flamenco and R&B.
And the pandemic?
Like many international artists, he travels under restrictions in Europe.
“I have to become a nomad to be able to dance,” he says.
© 2020 AFP