PROGRAM

 
 
 
 
 

AZUL is a collection of stories and reflections about the importance of the world of ideas and the unique capacity of humans to build and destroy realities based on their biggest and most dangerous gift: the imagination. It is a tribute to the vastness of our minds that may lift us to the sky or throw us into the depths of the sea.

PIECES

  1. Light / Alegrias

  2. Garzín / Seguiriyas

  3. Azure / Farruca

  4. Quijote / Tangos

  5. Tarantos

  6. Border / Solea por bulerías

  7. Blue / Bulerias de Cadiz

 

ARTISTS

The Sydney Flamenco Studio Students: Linda Effendy, Belinda Wai-Yee Ho, Kelli Tangney, Kelly O’Brien, Cassia Jurcevic, Luz Uribe, Kitty Soutar, Mayda Díaz, Fleur Denny, Michelle Cervonaro, Rachael Melky, Xara Zaineddine, Kristine Marshall.

Musicians: Greg Alfonzetti (Guitar), Damian de Boos-Smith (Cello + Guitar), Byron Mark (Percussion), Zoe Velez (Vocals), Jackson Perrett-Re-Surace (Vocals), Jonathan Moller (Soundscape).

Voice-over: Cilla Campbell.

Original concept and choreography: Chachy Peñalver.

Texts: Chachy Peñalver and some excerpts from El Quijote (Miguel de Cervantes), Azul (Ruben Darío), and Azure (Mallarme).

Costume design: Chachy Peñalver and Floracita by Fleurtacious.

Light Design: Jonathan Moller, Chachy Peñalver and Alex Stoner. 

Production Assistant: Rachael Melky. Art / Graphic Design: Melanie Tu.

Texts translation: Katie Moyle and Jonathan Moller.

Stage Manager: Jonathan Moller / Assistant Stage manager: Edgar Covarrubias.

 

TEXTS

LIGHT / ALEGRIAS

One needs light to enter here... 

What I share now is only the echo, of an echo, of an echo of a thought. A hypothetical, invisible, elastic, weightless fluid, with which you and I have filled our lives, through unspoken agreement. A wonderful ether that acts as a bridge in this shared reality: A weightless substance that, being human you and I… allows me to tell you, for example: "a forensic doctor assures those who die by suicide usually have sand in their hearts." You will not only understand this, but it will seem entirely possible to you. You will perceive it as objective when I say I live in Australia and you in Jordan because a cartographer drew it that way on a piece of paper, or you might find it inspiring when I tell you of the troubles of a man with a saddened figure who battled windmills and fell in love with a prostitute as demanded by ideals of a chivalry long since passed. 

We will understand each other perfectly because in this world in which you and I inhabit there are no Gods of flesh, nations, human rights or justice, more than in the consensus of the common imagination of human beings…and yet here we are, an entire society based on the realm of imagination. That infinite gift that lifts us to heaven or throws us into the depths of the sea. 

Here is our greatest gift… the vast sea of the world of ideas.

Written by Chachy Penalver.

GARZIN / SEGUIRIYAS

Garzín was a modest boy. Always at Cafe ‘Plombier’ in search of the old laurel crown, just like everyone else. When we all laughed like fools or children, he would stare at the ceiling and say: 

A blue bird is longing for freedom, caged deep in my mind ... 

It was quite hard to understand... 

When we found him, he was holding the famous poem. We cried beside the corpse of our beloved friend. Written on the last page were these words: Today in the middle of spring, for the poor blue bird, I’ve opened the cage door” 

A small bird for some, for others a mythical titan. I have believed myself the owner of your destiny, but I have quickly discovered that there are no owners in the blue sky of thought. 

Written by Chachy Penalver inspired in AZUL of Ruben Darío.

AZURE / FARRUCA

We live in this dome of infinite blue.

It’s Serene irony overwhelms,

 Lovely laziness like flowers,

The poet, abject, who curses his gift

Across dead desert pain

 

Fleeing, eyes closed,

I feel it watch With the fever of earthen guilt,

My soul, nothing.

Where to go? And what sad night To throw, in tatters, across this overpowering contempt?

 Azure triumphs

and should-not-be.

I am haunted. Azure! Azure! Azure! 

Excerpts of AZURE of Mallarme.

QUIJOTE / TANGOS

No one was able to stop the knight with the saddened figure... there they were, in the middle of the field facing 30 or 40 windmills, and as soon as Don Quixote saw them, he said to his squire: 

“—Fortune guides our affairs better than we could have hoped; because you see there, my friend Sancho, those thirty or more outrageous giants, with whom I intend to do battle and take away their lives, with whose spoils we will begin to enrich ourselves…that is a good war, and it is a great service to God to remove such bad seed from the face of the earth. 

—What giants? —said Sancho Panza.
—The ones you see here —his master replies—with long arms. Some of which can be two miles long. 

—Look, Your Grace," replied Sancho, "those that appear here are not giants, but windmills, and what seems to be their arms are the blades.

—‘Well it seems, that you are not trained in this matter of  adventures”  answered Don Quijote : They are giants; and if you are afraid, get out of here and pray, that I am going to enter with them in fierce and unequal battle”. 

This is how that man of paper and ink set fire to the thoughts of so many other men on earth. More than a century ago he taught us that there is no feat of greater value than that of pursuing an ideal... 

Excerpts from ‘DON QUIJOTE’ of Miguel de Cervantes.

BORDER / SOLEA POR BULERIA

Would someone stand up and tell me: Where do you touch the border? Is it under a rock? Beneath the sand?... where is that line?... Between two mountains?... Who decided that the line is curved and not straight?

The border is here… in this undefined cluster we call “thought”. Vast as the ocean, arbitrary as words. Just for today, I will say that HOME is the pilgrimage of memories, and I will allow “here” and “there” to embrace, because that’s how the heart understands it.

Tonight, is just my mind recreating the geography of thoughts

Written by Chachy Penalver.

BLUE / BULERIAS DE CADIZ

Those who read only words thought of him to be crazy. ‘ART IS BLUE’, assured Victor Hugo more than a century ago. Art is the most sincere product of our thoughts, it is the vastness of a deep ocean, borderless; a world where the consensus and what belongs to us individually coexist. That infinite sky where we can set free that which we carry here – and here.

 I truly hope you are awake when the madness of “El Quijote” invades you, or when the sadness of life pierces your soul, because only while you are awake, will you be able to understand the profound beauty of the boundless sea of the world of ideas you navigate.

 Written by Chachy Penalver.

 

ACKNOWLEDGE

A massive thank you to all artists, friends and family that have helped to build this show in one way or another.

Love is the most powerful engine and this show is a testament to that.

Let’s keep creating and sharing art!

Chachy Penalver