Mi sino, Madre no me riñas mas
“My destiny, Mother don’t dispute it any more”
Mi sino, June 2010
Mixed media collage (paper, card, pencil, wool, metallic thread, gauche)
These were the first two lines of a cante which I was learning from Loli Moreno, a well known flamenco singer in and around Sevilla. Jules and I were staying in Sevilla for 2 months learning Spanish and trying to escape the 40 degree Summer inferno. I choose to describe the circumstances through which I met Loli as God conspiring to delight me. Not knowing any flamenco teachers in Sevilla I had asked a man who owned a flat we were hoping to rent. He was a personal friend of Loli and recommended her. The best word I can think of to describe Loli is simpatico – kind, warm and friendly. She was immensely encouraging and both heightened my confidence and deepened my love for the melodic intensity of the Spanish soul.
Loli taught me a number of cantes de Huelva - songs from Huelva, a province of Andalusia which I had actually travelled through 9 years earlier (and discovered it to be the home of Spain's best jamon iberico). Mi sino is an Antiguo Valiente de Huelva, about a young man asserting his independence. The themes of other cantes were waiting in vain for lovers, unfaithful love, holding out under oppression and keeping quiet when your father is angry.
It was the cantes about fighting, destiny and oppression that resonated with me the most as I visited the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo (Andalusian Centre of Contemporary Art). I saw two exhibitions there.
In the exhibition No Singing Allowed - Flamenco and Photography, gritty photos of strong passionate singers, guitarists and dancers hung from the walls. The title comes from the time under Franco when signs were hung in the entrances of bars across Spain prohibiting the flamenco voice to be heard.
Then I moved to Miguel Trillo’s photo retrospective, Identities, which tracked the development of urban youth sub cultures from Spain’s transition to democracy until today. Trillo used the lens of fashion worn by alternative rock concert goers and also photographed young mods, punks, Goths, rappers and heavy metal freaks who he met on the street.
Amidst this anarchic celebration of freedom was a photomontage of political posters, graffiti, government signs, flags, a tattooed Spanish bull. They represented for me the quest for identity and freedom, much like Mi sino cries out for.
The two exhibitions, moving from prohibition to open experimentation and diversified political voices, the characters in both insistent on self expression. Mi sino is an apt echo, a thread weaving through both collections.
The feisty passion of Spain’s cantes and the artists who sing them, along with the diverse colours of the tribes and political movements which have decorated Spain’s release from dictatorship – these are embedded in my collage.
Mi sino,
Madre no me riñas mas
Dejame vivi mi sino
Que los piedras van rodando
Cada una por su camino
Y yo se por donde ando
My destiny,
Mother, don’t dispute it any more
Let me live my destiny
Like the stones which roll
Each one along their path
And I know the way to walk
Identities Photo wall, Miguel Trillo
Squashed in a tiny hot dressing room of a local peña, opened specially for a small gathering of Loli's friends, I make my flamenco debut!
L-R Loli's flamenco guitarist partner and husband; singer Pepe Rueda; myself; friend; Loli Moreno.
Photographer: Julian Carter
Sources:
Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, No Singing Allowed: Flamenco and Photography, pamphlet, www.caac.es/descargas/hoj_flamyfot09_ingles.pdf
Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Miguel Trillo: Identities, pamphlet, www.caac.es/descargas/hoj_trillo09_ingles.pdf
Mona Molarsky, ‘Review: No singing allowed—flamenco photography at the Aperture Gallery & Instituto Cervantes’ NY City Life Examiner, Feb 5 2010, www.examiner.com/x-907-NY-City-Life-Examiner~y2010m2d5-FlamencoPhotos
