Enrique el Cojo
Who is Enrique el Cojo?
Enrique Jiménez Mendoza was born in Cáceres on 31 March 1912, the son of Enrique Jiménez Ávalos and Julia Mendoza Espino. When he was barely three, his family moved to Seville, where his father worked in a beer hall on Calle Sierpes. At eight he developed a tumor in his left leg which, despite treatment with home remedies such as the so-called “purgante de la calle Relator,” left him with a permanent limp: hence the nickname that would stay with him his whole life without ever holding back his vocation for dance.
Career
Before devoting himself fully to flamenco he tried his luck as a photographer and as a nurse, but he eventually opened his first academy on Calle del Peral in Seville, later moved to Calle Espíritu Santo, where it remained active for 53 years. Among his students were bailaoras who would go on to become top-tier figures, such as Manuela Vargas, Lola Flores and Cristina Hoyos, alongside pupils from very different backgrounds, from the Duchess Cayetana de Alba to foreign students such as the Japanese bailaora Aichi Kasouwa.
He also appeared in film, sharing scenes with Plácido Domingo and Ruggero Raimondi in Francesco Rosi’s “Carmen.”
Style
His dancing was marked by a very particular command of arm movement, with which he drew arabesques according to a personal, almost geometric, conception of stage space. Despite his limp, he managed to execute footwork and travelling steps that gave an unexpected grace to his slight figure.
Legacy
He received the Medalla de Bellas Artes from the Ministry of Culture, and Minister Javier Solana himself visited him shortly before his death. Admitted on 18 November 1984 to the Hospital Universitario de Sevilla with a cerebral thrombosis, he died days later at his home, where he lived with his sister Julia. He was buried at the San Fernando cemetery in Seville, leaving behind more than half a century of teaching that shaped several generations of Seville bailaoras.