Blanca Paloma (Elche, 34 years old) trembled as she took the stage for the first time during her participation in the first Benidorm Fest at the Palau d’Esports l’Illa de Benidorm. A year later, when he returns to the same place to compete with the EAEA, he has felt right at home. And not so much out of habit. This window, made available to millions of people through RTVE, is still intimidating, he says. But this time she was accompanied by a circular curtain inspired by the shawl of her grandmother Carmen, the woman who instilled in her flamenco and whom she described as “matriarch, Sevillian, seamstress, soul of the party and after-dinner star of the family.” ” designated. ” “. Calling on her presence in a powerful, theatrical staging last Thursday helped her become one of the favorites to win the competition in Alicante on Saturday and thus be Spain’s representative at Eurovision 2023.
𝐌𝐢 𝐚𝐛𝐮𝐞𝐥𝐚 CARMEN 🌹 Matriarch, Sevillian, seamstress, soul of the party, desktop artist of the family! From her I inherited the sewing machine, the precision in the seams, the love for flamenco and little shame! Tonight… 🕤 pic.twitter.com/oHfOCgK9zE
— Blanca Paloma (@BlancaPaloma_rb) December 15, 2022
The proposal, which plays with flamenco sounds and her personal heritage and includes a lavish set design, “is the result of a need that came just when it was missing. Back when he died, I had a vocation for flamenco. It coincided with my arrival in Madrid about 10 years ago,” he recalled this Friday at his hotel in Benidorm. Created in the field of fine arts and with experience in theatrical set design, Blanca Paloma’s discography is still in its early stages. His first recording was Secreto del agua, the soundtrack of RTVE Play’s documentary series Lucía en la telaraña, with which he placed fifth in Benidorm last year. But her artistic path is gradually taking shape, with the invisible guidance of Grandma Carmen.
The first time it manifested was the almost ghostly heel slap I heard on the roof of Madrid’s Antón Martín market. The school Amor de Dios is located on the upper floor. “I went there and started hearing these paragraphs and getting excited, like, ‘But what is this? I got carried away by the sound. I entered the market and I kept hearing heels between the fish and vegetables. When I got to the second floor, I found this journey between space and time to which I was transported,” his story continues. She knew then that she had to enter this place to reconnect with the essence she had separated from, to fill the void of what was missing. He signed up for flamenco classes.
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“It was all very enlightening because I met Lina, a dance teacher who reminded me of my grandmother because of her personality. I always looked forward to finishing her class to talk to her because it made me feel close to my grandmother. We began to have an almost family bond. I always cried at the end of these courses,” she says. One day her teacher invited her to try to sing like Carmen, to go through the school next door to take singing lessons and to express this loss in a different way.
The legacy of Fran and Carmen
For Fran Ramos, father of Blanca Paloma and son of Carmen, it was important that his descendants, despite living in Elche, maintain the connection to their Andalusian roots, he says a few meters from his daughter, who he lives with his wife Mari Carmen in this accompanies hectic days in Benidorm. He did it. Blanca Paloma remembers that instead of a playroom, her house had a music room. “It was very small, with a carpeted floor that you walked on barefoot and that transported you to another place. There were records, cassettes, a microphone… My brothers and I grew up there, singing, dancing and feeling that music is a space for expression and freedom. From there, I think it’s where I connect and where I want to express myself from,” he affirms.
BenidormFest 2023 finalist Blanca Paloma hugs her parents, Fran Ramos and Mari Carmen Baeza just before the draw in the order of appearance for this Saturday’s final.
The space was key, but those singing lessons were key, Blanca Paloma admits. One thing led to another. He came into contact with a flamenco group with which he also began to sing in Switzerland. In 2021, the artist auditioned for Acciones sencillas, a show by dancer Jesús Rubio Gamo, Max Award for Performing Arts for Best Dance Show of 2020. She joined the cast and with this show, which continues on Active, he has performed at venues such as the Conde Duque in Madrid and the Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona. Through him he came into contact with the person responsible for the musical composition, José Pablo Polo. He’s the one who is now accompanying him on his Eurovisual adventure and one of the people who helped him build EAEA’s acclaimed stage (and television) proposal, which already has an agreement with Universal Music but which they are in Self-designed way.
In this candidacy to win the Benidorm Fest 2023, with choreography by Paula Quintana and costumes by Paola de Diego, he is surrounded on stage by a group of women, chorus girls Desiré Paredes and Saray Frutos and dancers Angélica Moyano, Paula Valbuena and Paloma Fernandez. Together they create on stage this “rite of invocation, of trance, of catharsis, where we somehow connect to our ancestors, to the power, to the legacy that each of us left,” says the artist. The link to Lorca is inevitable. “It’s been a great inspiration since I started studying fine arts. I dedicated myself to the sets and costumes, and I worked in the spirit of La Barraca, advancing the art with the means at our disposal,” he defends. One of EAEA’s stanzas pays homage to the poet Álvaro Tato, another of those responsible for Blanca Paloma leaping forward onto the stage and one of her mentors in the Lorca universe. He heard him singing and asked him to help him with his voice to introduce one of his books, Zarazas. Flamenco couplets assembled.
His EAEA is a song that’s not pure flamenco and one that music critics find hard to define. “That’s positive. It’s a success to have found the key to doing something that looks like nothing else.” If he comes to Liverpool with her, he won’t mind summoning the spirit of Remedios Amaya too, although her flamenco proposal of performing her barefoot took the worst place at Eurovision 1983 with Quién maneja mi barca. “I think that the European public at the time might not have been prepared for what was ahead of its time. With this song I would like to add, get in Remedios’ boat and hopefully Spain will feel ready to go to the Eurovision Song Contest with a flamenco proposal.”
This Saturday, in the final of the Benidorm Fest, he will return to this protective red circle made up of the fringes of his grandmother’s scarf. “I let my privacy shine through, but I don’t show myself at all to then come out forcefully, for everyone, empowered,” she continues.
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