“She is a volcano of Spanish music.”
Charlie Chaplin
Introduction
When you think of Spanish culture, one of the most beautiful components is the art of flamenco dancing. Shaping hands and feet to entrancing music is addictive and pleasantly haunting. An art that has evolved over generations but keeps the essence of its gypsy roots. One Spanish dancer who dominated this dance was Carmen Amaya. A dancer whose footwork was as good as it gets. Fast, rhythmic and on point. Carmen was a one-off, and in my opinion, no one has come close to matching her brilliance.
Born to Dance
Born in the Barcelona shanty town of Sorromostro in 1918 under a blanket, Carmen Amaya was a gypsy, the second of eleven children. The daughter of Micaela Amaya and José Amaya. Only six children survived, and Carmen was one of the lucky ones. Yet this young girl had abundant talent for dance and became the family’s economic rocket. She came from a musical family; her father was a guitarist, and her mother was a dancer. They lived in desperate poverty and made their money by selling bedding, and clothing and playing music in the taverns of the village.
The young Carmen, four years old at the time, would accompany her father. He played the guitar and she sang and danced, picking up the coins thrown by the audience. Carmen was a natural, she had an angelic grace that was breathtaking to watch. This pocket flamenco rocket, soon got tongues wagging as she toured the theatres. José Sampere, an artistic impresario, was the first to take an interest. Through him, she performed at what is now the Teatro Español in Barcelona. The complication was though that Carmen wasn’t of a legal age. A difficulty that didn’t seem to matter in the end as her talent outweighed her difficulty.
Soon nicknamed “La Capitana”, Carmen was well-known in the flamenco circuit but her name wouldn’t appear in print until the International Exhibition of 1929. She travelled with her mother and aunt to Paris. Appearing as a trio in a show directed by Raquel Meller. Carmen was the star of the show and Meller didn’t like it. She fired her. However, the Amaya Trio were not short of offers and thrived following the sacking. Carmen earned enough to support the family and for them to move into their first house, made from mud bricks and built by her father. One large room, divided into a kitchen and bedroom.
Yet this demand made her ill and it wasn’t long before she had to terminate contracts to return to Spain. After a period of recovery, Carmen performed on the main stages in Spain including the Press Palace in Madrid. She was only 12 and had already appeared in her first film, María de la O” filmed in “Orpheas” in 1936. As the joy of the Catalan night disappeared, she received a flood of global offers including from America.
The Global Stage
In 1936, Carmen performed in Buenos Aires, then Brazil, earning fourteen thousand dollars weekly. She then did a tour of some of the South American countries before moving to the United States. She performed at Carnegie Hall in New York and at Radio City where she performed nine times per day. Carmen appeared in movies and was a guest of Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House, performing for the President. She would tour the States several times. She ended up spending five years in the United States before returning to Spain.
Carmen would go on to tour the Middle East and Europe, especially Paris and Rome. She came back to Barcelona in 1951 and married Juan Antonio Agüero in the Parish of Santa Madrona. However, Carmen would be struck down with kidney disease and after filming Los Torantos, she became too weak to perform again. She retired to a farm for a quiet life. An impressive dancing career that spanned between 1924 and 1963. At only 4 feet 11 inches, she was a woman who defied all odds and became the first woman to master dance moves reserved for male dancers. A dancer who was awarded the Medal of the Barcelona Tourist Merit, Order of Isabella the Catholic and Adoptive Daughter of Begur. Known for wearing high trousers for her dances, Carmen died of kidney disease in Begur, Girona, Barcelona and is buried at the cemetery of Ciriego in Santander.
