Famous Dancers
Carmen Amaya, Barcelona, 1963. Flamenco dancer, singer and daughter of the flamenco guitar player El Chino, also known at the beginning as La Capitana. She began practicing flamenco since she was a child, accompanied by her father, and at the age of six debuted in the Restaurant Las Siete Puertas of her native city. She danced in Paris for the first time at the Palace Theater, returning after to Barcelona to continue her tour in several important stages, such as La Taurina, The Taurine one.
Sara Pereyra Baras was born in Cadiz in 1971 and from an early age received dance instruction from her mother. Sara Baras is one of the new revolutionary dancers, a young talent of just thirty-seven years who has already reserved her place in the history of flamenco dance. She has the ability to transmit the same emotion and feeling on a large stage as one would find at an intimate flamenco get-together. She has a spontaneous approach to the dance, which is full of stomping footwork, and her style is streamline, replacing the frills and flowing gowns with a more classic look.
Antonio Gades (November 14, 1936 - July 20, 2004) was a Spanish flamenco dancer and choreographer (born Antonio Esteve Ródenas in Elda, Land of Valencia). He helped to popularise the art form on the international stage. His most notable works included dance adaptations of Prosper Merimée's Carmen and Federico García Lorca's Blood Wedding (Bodas de Sangre), and El Amor Brujo. In the 1990s, he toured the world with his show Fuenteovejuna based on Lope de Vega's play of the same name.
Joaquín Cortés (born February 22, 1969) is a classically trained ballet and flamenco dancer from Spain. A native of Córdoba, Cortés showed interest in dancing from an early age. Cortés and his family moved to Madrid in 1981. Soon after moving to Madrid, he began to take formal dancing lessons and studying seriously. In 1984, he was accepted as a member of Spain's prestigious national ballet company. He traveled the world with the Spanish National Ballet, performing in important venues such as the Cosmopolitan Opera House of New York and the Kremlin Palace in Moscow.
