Online Performances until July 8th & fun personal anecdotes

The artists featured this week are Choro Molina and La Moneta (the performances link is provided at the end of the post) My stories regarding these artists date back to a few years ago. I will start with La Moneta.

The first time I learned about this artist was during the 2004 Jerez Flamenco Festival. That year I completed a 15 hour Bata de Cola Course with Matilde Coral, a legend in the Sevilla Style of Flamenco (Escuela Sevillana). La Moneta was also attending the course, but it was obvious that she had something special and her skills were beyond the rest of the attendees. This student, then around 19 years old, was receiving a lot of attention from the teacher. I only realized that I was looking at an an up-and-coming artist, a year or two later when I attended one of La Moneta’s theatre performances in Seville.

At the end of the course the final dance was video recorded with La Moneta performing it alone. I viewed this video recording often, when I was working on the choreography of Liviana we learned. The dance was choreographed to Miguel Poveda’s beautiful Si me Vieras from his album Zaguán.

A la orilla del río yo me voy solo
Y aumento la corriente con lo que lloro.
 
Y si me vieras, y si me vieras
Lástima te causara, dolor te diera.
 
Dicen que "tó" lo bueno cuesta un "sentío"
Que sabrás tú que cuesta "toíto" lo mío
Que estoy pasando por esta buena gitana
"Toíto" lo que tengo.


- translation - 
To the river bank I go alone
and from all the tears that I cry the river's water flow faster.
And if you saw me, and if you saw me
Pity you will have on me and you will feel my pain.
They say that everything good costs a "feeling"
What do you know about what it is all costing me
I am giving everything I have got for this good gypsy.

Unfortunately, I recently tried to locate this video but it seems that it was discarded in my move to Spain. I have seen La Moneta years later in a theatre and since then many more times, both in intimate performance settings and in theatres. Apart from the performance and especially over the last 2 years I have attended La Moneta’s workshop classes, here in Seville. Below is a photo from the January 2020 class.

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Choro Molina was a teacher of the beginner level dance course at the 2005 summer program at the Foundación Cristina Heeren de Arte Flamenco. I was not one of his students as I was attending the advanced level, but got to see him interact with his students while waiting for my class to start. He was also a popular performer at the Casa de la Memoria tablao in its old location in the Barrio Santa Cruz (the Santa Cruz, Jewish neighbourhood). What is most memorable about his performances was his ‘Alegrias‘ dance where he would do part of his footwork off the wooden platform, right on the concrete floor, and do a quick one-foot movement so fast that the nails on the bottom of his shoes would create sparks from the friction. That impressed everyone: both tourists and non-tourists alike.

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Now for this and next week’s performance: Choro Molina’s Bayles de Jitanos is playing until the first of July and starting July 2nd to the 8th La Moneta’s Muy Especial.

Both of these performances can be watched for free, however donations are accepted to support the artists during the pandemic. For more information and to make a donation visit the flamencodesofa.com website. Enjoy the performances!!