Vivir has been five years in the making, developed in the studios of Madrid by the soaring comet that is Aylin Eleonora. She has fallen in love with Flamenco, but is also something of a poetess, & wishes to expand, bend & stretch the possibilities of her chosen artform. Her guitarist, Raul Mannola, seems a visitor from another planet, astoundingly proficient; to watch his fingerwork & hear his chimes is to have our world dissolve in a momentary vision of the empyrean. Vivir, as a show, sees Aylin changing dress for each of her pieces, opening with a stunning white silk gown, which billows like a sail in a storm. Later she would revert to the traditional reds & blacks of Flamenco. As she danced, I loved the way she attacked her moves – breathtaking at times – conjuring eagles & dragons with her flamboyent shawl-work.
Between costume changes, Raul played piece after piece of perfect Flamenco. Overall, Vivir is a thirst-quenching experience for those who dwell in the European north, starved of the sunshine of the south. You can almost smell the Andalusian harvest, & can almost feel the spirit which rose up against Napoleon. There is also the penultimate song, free-form playing based on the raga scales of North India, which showed Aylin & Raul pushing their boundaries back even further, & also demonstrating that Siva & Parvati, linga & yoni, still retain the ability to manifest on our mortal plane.
Damian Beeson Bullen
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