Towards the freedom of OFF for this 3rd day of the festival

Marathon day and flamenca all the way through the night. The day begins at 6 p.m. at the Museum of Fine Arts for a free concert of Tomas de Perrate et Caracafe. Radical change in musical atmosphere. Tomas begins with his brazen voice with a siguiraya, his concert going from the deepest to the lightest. This show leaves you wanting more. How to imagine a concert flamenco singing in a hall of magnificent dimensions, with a glass roof so high that a three-story building could be accommodated, with walls decorated with grandiose firefighter paintings, women draped in vaporous veils, their breasts discreetly flush with them; the scenes are martial, the lights at their maximum and the artists try to recreate the intimacy necessary for this type of singing. It’s complicated. But after the disaster of the day before, the doors of paradise opened before us. I ask myself the question, why is singing relegated to improbable places (which could be good), but completely unsuitable (much less good). That the festival irrigates the city is an excellent thing. That the Off festival develops and grows is even better. And it happened to be my day off.

After the museum, there was the opening of the exhibition of Jules Milhau at the Hôtel Boudon, rue de Bernis. I would like to take this opportunity to make a digression. On the sidewalk opposite, a gay bar has opened, The Pride. I could see impacts on the front door. I was confirmed that the bar had been attacked and that the two managers had been beaten. Flamenco or not, we can’t pretend it doesn’t exist. Let’s go back across the street to talk about the paintings of Jules. This young man (he is 24 years old) has been painting since the age of 4. Self-taught, he is in perpetual search of movement. He takes flamenco lessons with Cathia Picture since the age of 10. Many inks on paper evoke dancers with arms similar to lianas, sometimes a red carnation accentuates the movement. My preference goes to a large black virgin, with a face full of sweetness and firmness. It’s a completely different technique made of collages. To accompany his protégé, Cathia Picture improvise a tablao sans tablao. Accompanied by Antonio Cortes on the guitar, Fair Eleria et Manuel Gomez to the singingshe danced on the three-century-old stone slabs. The conditions were difficult, but the flamenco dancerdressed all in red, chic and original, managed to make the tiles sound as if she were dancing on oak.

After a light snack, on the way to the Off. Andres Roe, big man of this Off, had the excellent initiative to liven up these frustrating late evenings in recent years. The guitarist Antonio Moya is the locomotive. THE chart of Cathia is there, a young guitar prodigy of around ten years old plays in a breathtaking way. In the middle of the night, a discreet shadow appears, who grabs a guitar and begins to accompany the child gently and without arrogance; a falseta escapes him. In 30s, the light appears, it is Yerai Cortes. It escapes any comparison; it mixes tenderness and irony, tragedy and humor. He tells the story of a thousand lives in 5 minutes. And the most astonishing thing is the relationship he creates with other artists, singers or guitarists. It establishes immediate complicity without implying any hierarchy.

It was a wonderful way to end this first part of my festival.