EL PERIÓDICO

BY OLGA MERINO

MONDAY, JUNE 22, 2015

Family meeting at number 35 on the Rambla. The daughter, María Rosa Pérez Casares (Paris, 1961), was born in the French capital because her parents, guitarist and dancer, were acting there at the time. The father, Luis Pérez Adame (Madrid, 1938), preferred the maternal surname as a stage name. The saga runs the tablao Cordobés, founded in 1970.

-Luis: I did the violin career at the conservatory and studied classical guitar. I am a musician who became a tocaor because I had to earn money.

-María Rosa: They had put Cordobés for the bullfighter … My parents had a flamenco company that traveled throughout Spain, and they went to Barcelona, ​​where they were hired by the then owners of the tablao: Matías Colsada, theater impresario of Paral·lel, and Joan Gaspart, from the HUSA group.

-And the wandering life of the Artisteo is over.

-L .: We already had two children, with 11 and 12 years old, and we had left them behind in many of those tours abroad that were made then, of six months or more. It was time, and here we burned the ships. The bet had to go well, yes or yes.

– Great artists have passed through here.

-M.R .: Almost all; I would say that 90% of those who are and have been something in flamenco. Legends that are no longer with us, such as Camarón de la Isla, Bernarda and Fernanda de Utrera, El Chocolate, Lole and Manuel, Farruco (grandfather of bailaor Farruquito) …

-L .: I remember when I hired Farruco for the first time; He was about 50 years old and weighed a lot of kilos. My wife, as a dancer, seeing him so fat when he moved into the hotel next door, feared the worst and said: “Either he’s a genius or he’s a clown.”

-And it turned out a genius.

-L .: He filled the stage with jackets! With those works, I was able to convey a very intense emotion.

-The natives frequent the tablao. Is it a show to guide?

-M.R .: 90% of our clientele is foreign. For locals, we are one of the best kept secrets in Barcelona. We are part of the history of the city. In the 70s and 80s, when it was not yet a tourist destination, we often had limos at the door because we were one of the few interesting shows that could be seen. We were competing with the Scala!

– Limousines?

-L .: Salvador Dalí’s, for example. In the 70s we had the floor carpeted in red, and the first time, just open the door, he said: “This is like a big watermelon!”. There were also the actor Keanu Reeves and the pianist Chick Corea.

-Rambla and flamenco sounds like plastic.

-M.R .: The association of those two words invites the topic, yes. And in our case, it is just the opposite: we follow the tradition of the old 19th century singer cafés and the post-war wine houses. We maintain a very high artistic level.

-L .: You can not talk about tourism in a pejorative way either. Most of them approach flamenco with extraordinary respect, as if surrounded by an aura.

-But do they understand what they see?

-L .: Let’s see, knowing flamenco knows very little people, but it is not necessary to enjoy it. It is detected at once when they want to give you a hare. We’ve been here for 45 years because people are not stupid, neither tourists nor locals.

-Barcelona was always very flamenco.

-M.R .: The footprint has been huge, and even now very young artists are emerging very good, like the dancer from Tarragona Belén López, El Yiyo, from Sant Roc, or Karime, niece of Carmen Amaya granddaughter. Not to mention, in the cante, by Miguel Poveda and Mayte Martín.

ENLACE: http://www.elperiodico.com/es/noticias/ocio-y-cultura/somos-secreto-mejor-guardado-barcelona-4296092