Blanca del Rey
Who is Blanca del Rey?
Blanca Ávila Moreno was born in Córdoba in 1949. Her stage name comes from her marriage to Manuel del Rey, owner of the Madrid tablao El Corral de la Morería, one of the most prestigious flamenco venues in Spain. From a very young age, at just six, she stood out by winning various children’s competitions, an early sign of the vocation that would lead her to a successful debut at the Gran Teatro de Córdoba before moving to Madrid.
In the capital she found her natural home on the stage of El Corral de la Morería, the same venue that would come to bear her married surname and where, decades later, she would also serve as artistic director.
Career
Her marriage and the arrival of her two children led to a pause in her stage career, which she herself turned into a time of study: she devoted herself to thoroughly researching the historical evolution of flamenco, an education that would transform her understanding of dance. Her return, with tours through Japan and a prominent presence on the Televisión Española program “La Danza”, marked her definitive consecration.
From there she developed her own choreographies for palos such as alegrías, caña and guajira, and created pieces bearing her personal stamp, such as her celebrated “Soleá del Mantón”. She collaborated with figures of the stature of Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar on “Del Sitar a la Guitarra”, took part in productions of Manuel de Falla’s “La vida breve” and “Los tarantos” with the Ballet Nacional de España, and shared the stage with Maurice Béjart in “Carte Blanche”. She also founded her own company, the Ballet Flamenco Blanca del Rey.
Style
Her dancing draws very directly on the guitar and the cante, with a remarkable ability to translate music into movement; at the height of her career, critics went so far as to consider her the finest bailaora on the flamenco scene.
Legacy
She was named representative of Spanish dance to the European Community at the request of Jacques Delors, and received honors such as the Premio Nacional de Flamenco from the Cátedra de Jerez, the Premio Calle de Alcalá and the title of Cordobesa del Año. She performed at landmark festivals such as the Bienal de Sevilla and the Festival de Flamenco de Jerez, and bid farewell to the stage in 2012 at a Suma Flamenca gala where other dancers paid tribute to her, closing out a career that established her as one of the great ambassadors of flamenco in the world.