Carmen Amaya Amaya (2 November 1913/1915 – 19 November 1963) was a Spanish Romani flamenco dancer and singer, born in the Somorrostro district of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
She has been called "the greatest Flamenco dancer ever" and "the most extraordinary personality of all time in flamenco dance." She was the first female flamenco dancer to master footwork previously reserved for the best male dancers, due to its speed and intensity. She sometimes danced in high-waisted trousers as a symbol of her strong character.
Biography
She was born to a Spanish Romani family, to José Amaya Amaya (aka "El Chino", "The Chinaman"), a guitar player, and Micaela Amaya Moreno. Carmen was the second of eleven children, although only six (three sisters and two brothers) survived to adulthood.
Her date of birth is disputed. Montse Madridejos and David Pérez Merinero name 1918 as her year of birth. They cite Barcelona's inhabitants list of 1930, in which a family Amalla with a 12-year-old daughter Carmen is mentioned. They claim that no birth document is available and the document of baptism was lost due to a church fire. Furthermore, a 1920 oil painting by Julio Moisés named Maternidad shows a mother with a 2-3 year old girl, supposed to be Carmen with her mother Micaela. According to them, photographs showing Carmen Amaya as a teenager also support 1918 as the year of birth. According to Montse Madridejos, professor of Music History at the University of Barcelona and a flamenco history researcher, who specializes in Carmen Amaya, her ethnicity could have also been a factor in the birth date ambiguity: "At that time, a gypsy was neither baptized, nor registered".
However José Luis Navarro García, cátedra de flamencología, as well as most other sources name 2 November 1913. This version is supported by the fact that in 1923 Carmen Amaya performed in a club in Madrid, which would be unlikely for a 5-year-old child, and a quote by Carmen Amaya herself in which she refers to her performance at the 1929 world exhibition:«... en la Exposición de Barcelona de 1929, yo tenía dieciseis años ...»"... at the Barcelona exhibition in 1929, when I was sixteen years old ... "
Her death certificate names 1 November 1915 as date of birth, however, perhaps splitting the difference as does the Library of Congress.
Amaya entered the flamenco world accompanied by her father, an impoverished Calé Romani guitarist who made a living by playing in pubs day and night. When Carmen was a child, she started going out with her father at night. He accompanied her on the guitar while she performed. Afterwards, they begged and picked the small change that the public threw on the floor. Soon earned her first nickname, "La Capitana".
At the same time, she started to appear in some lesser known theaters. It was only after Josep Santpere, a bright variety show businessman, showed for the first time his interest in Carmen and introduced her to more prestigious venues, that she made her debut at the Spanish Theatre in Barcelona. Soon after, she was performing at the Palace Theatre in Paris.
The first time her name appeared in print was during the International Fair of Barcelona in 1929 thanks to Sebastià Gasch, an art critic who saw her and wrote an article in the weekly newspaper . Sebastian Gash wrote:Suddenly a jump! And the gypsy girl danced. Indescribable. Soul. Pure Soul. Feeling made flesh. The floorboards vibrated with unprecedented brutality and incredible precision. La Capitana was a gross product of Nature. Like all gypsies, She must have been born dancing. It was before school, before the academy. All that she knows, She must have known from birth. Promptly, the viewer feels subjugated, upset, dominated by the face of La Capitana, by her fierce hip movements, by the bravery of her pirouettes and the force of her broken turns, whose animal ardor ran parallel with the astonishing accuracy with which she executed them. The raging battery of her heels and the unsteady play of her arms now aroused, excited, then collapsing, surrendered, abandoned, dead, gently moved by the shoulders, are still recorded in our memories like indelible plaques. what caused us to look at her dance was her nerve, which twisted her in dramatic contortions, her blood, her violence, her wild impetuosity as a caste dancer.
At this point Vicente Escudero, a respected businessman, saw her dancing and concluded that Carmen would bring about a flamenco revolution thanks to her perfect synthesis of two important styles: that of the traditional dancers, and the looming style of dancers in the varieties.