Antonio Canales
Who is Antonio Canales?
Antonio Gómez de los Reyes, “Antonio Canales”, was born in 1961 in the corral de Saramaya, on Calle Castilla in Triana, Seville, into a family with flamenco roots: his grandfather, nicknamed Canales, was a highly regarded cantaor who never turned professional. He grew up in that Triana environment and began his dance training at the Club Natación Sevilla, starting out on a path that would very early on combine his family’s flamenco tradition with a much broader dance education.
Career
He studied classical dance under Víctor Ullate and completed his training in contemporary dance in Paris. After passing auditions at the Teatro Lope de Vega, he joined the Ballet Nacional de España, where he was a soloist for three years, and in 1981 he collaborated with Maguy Marin’s Parisian company, sharing the stage with figures of the stature of Rudolf Nureyev, Maya Plisetskaya and Vladimir Vasiliev. In 1992 he founded his own company, the Ballet Flamenco de Antonio Canales, debuting in Bilbao with the shows “A ti, Carmen Amaya” and “Siempre flamenco”. The following year he premiered “Torero” in Montreal, his most celebrated production, which surpassed seven hundred performances in Spain and abroad and was nominated for an Emmy Award for its television version in 1995. It was followed by productions such as “Gitano”, “Bengues”, “La casa de Bernarda Alba”, “Raíces”, “Prometeo”, “Bailaor”, “Minotauro” and “Ojos Verdes”, and in 2000 he starred in Tony Gatlif’s film “Vengo”.
Style
Canales advocates for a flamenco stripped of stage artifice, away from superficiality and centered on what he himself calls “the disposition of the soul” rather than staging. Over the years his approach has moved toward greater minimalism, giving up elaborate costumes and sets in favor of a more bare and direct performance, without losing the strength and gitano temperament that marked his early years on stage.
Legacy
His career has been recognized with the NAVISELA Award for best male dancer in Italy (1988), the award for best international male dancer of Mexico City (1990), shared with Julio Bocca, the Premio Nacional de Danza (1995), two Max Awards —including one for best dance production for “Gitano”— and the Medalla de Andalucía (1999). In 2002 he published his first novel, “Sangre de albero”. With a career that combines classical training, contemporary dance and the purest gitano tradition, Antonio Canales remains one of the most recognizable figures in contemporary flamenco dance, both in Spain and abroad.