11/15/2023 0 Comments Carmen amaya flamenco![]() They lived an authentic love story, with an intimate wedding. In 1952 she married the guitarist Juan Antonio Agüero, a member of her company, a man from a distinguished family from Santander who wasn’t gypsy. ![]() It seems that during her stay in America the dancer had a sentimental relationship with Sabicas who declared before his death he dated Carmen for nine years and they broke up in Mexico. She stood out not only for her art but also for the wonderful personality that won everyone she met. ![]() In that time her flamenco dance was the best one. Lot of stories hard to believe were told about her as the anecdote of the fried fish in the luxury suite of the Waldorf Astoria. Her stay in America turned her into a professional and famous artist. She didn’t come back to Spain until 1947 and she did it as a worldwide star. In America she met Roosevelt, the president of the United States and in Europe she even met the Queen of England. Anyone has ever span like her, so fast and perfect. Her compass was solid and she possessed a prodigious sense of the rhythm with a rigorous tempo that was exact in all her movements. The musician Toscanini went to watch her once and said that he had never seen an artist with that rhythm and fire before. She was in Hollywood a couple of times filming some movies and the cinema, music and culture celebrities wanted to watch her dancing. In America Carmen Amaya met a lot of famous people of her time. As a proof of the popularity of the artist in the South-American country we can find a theatre with her own name: the Theatre Amaya. They went there just for four weeks and stayed there nine months due to the fact that every time that Carmen performed in the theatre a lot of people attended and the tickets were sold two months before the show. They arrived to Buenos Aires and the triumph of Carmen Amaya and her family went beyond expectations. After some setbacks they embarked to America in a ship that took 15 days to cross the Atlantic. They had to go to Lisbon to enforce a contract but the car was confiscated and they couldn’t go there until November. In that moment their economy was in good shape and they bought their first car. The 18th July 1936 Carmen and her family were in the Zorrilla Theatre in Valladolid working in the company of Carcellé. Later, she worked in María de la O, along with Pastora Imperio. She performed a small role in La hija de Juan Simón. That was maybe her only national recognition. In 1935 she was hired by Carcellé who presented her in the Coliseum in Madrid. In that time also Vicente Escudero watched her dancing and said that Carmen Amaya will make a revolution in the flamenco dance because she mixed two styles: the old female dancer and the frenetic foot tapping of the male dancers. Movements of twist in right angle, pure geometry. Her name appeared for the first time printed in the Expo Barcelona 1929 thanks to Sebastián Gash, a sharp critic who watched her and talked about her in the weekly newspaper Mirador: “Imagine a 14 years old gypsy sitting in a chair on the tablao, Carmencita remained impassive, statuary, noble with a racial elegance, inscrutable, absent, not paying attention of what is happening around her, alone with her inspiration, with a very hieratic actitude to allow her soul to raise until inaccessible areas. However, the problem was that she wasn’t allowed to work legally due to her age so the officially date of birth may not be the real one according to some researches about the artist. José Sampere, a businessman, was the first one in being interested on her and took her to the most known Spanish Theatre of Barcelona. ![]() At the same time, she appeared in some theatres which lacked any prestige. After that, they asked for money or took the coins that the audience have thrown to the floor. Her father played the guitar and Carmen danced and singed. She was just a little gypsy girl by then. When she was only four years old she started going out at night with her father to help him. Her father was Francisco Amaya “El Chino”, a poor guitarist who played in taverns day and night to earn a living. She was born in a shack in the Somorrostro. BIOGRAPHY OF CARMEN AMAYA, THE FAMOUS FLAMENCO DANCER FROM BARCELONAĬarmen Amaya was born in Barcelona in 1913 and passed away in Begur (Gerona) in 1963.
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