Manuela Vargas
Who is Manuela Vargas?
Manuela Hermoso Vargas was born in 1941 in the Seville neighborhood of La Macarena. She had been dancing since childhood at family gatherings, and by twelve she was already working at the El Guajiro tablao; at sixteen she received more formal training under the teacher Enrique “El Cojo”, although much of her art was self-taught and was ultimately polished at tablaos such as El Duende in Madrid. Those who knew her noted that her style was like no one else’s: she danced, they said, “as God guided her,” relying more on dramatic force than on technical virtuosity, with something of the intensity of the great Mediterranean actresses.
Career
She made her debut in Madrid in 1962 at El Duende, and a year later created her first company together with the director José Monleón, with the project “La Antología del Flamenco”. In 1965 she performed at the Spanish pavilion of the New York World’s Fair. Throughout the 1980s she starred in productions of great theatrical weight, such as “Medea” (1984, with music by Manolo Sanlúcar and choreography by José Granero), Salvador Távora’s “Las Bacantes” (1987) and “La Petenera”, as well as working with director Miguel Narros on adaptations of classic texts.
She belonged to the Ballet Nacional de España starting in 1980, until 1984, when she left the company to once again lead her own project, and she also appeared in film, with a role in Almodóvar’s “La flor de mi secreto”. She had two daughters.
Style
She mastered palos such as the caña, the petenera, the seguiriya, the mirabrás, the bulería, the rumba, the tientos and the soleá, and the way she danced them is remembered for its emotional, tragic commitment rather than for technical showmanship.
Legacy
She won the Premio Internacional de Danza de París in 1963, received the Dama Cabal medal from the Cátedra de Flamencología de Jerez in 1969, and in 2006 the Medalla de Oro al Mérito en las Bellas Artes. She died in Madrid on October 12, 2007, at the age of sixty-five, from cancer, leaving behind several recordings as a testament to her art, including a 1967 album with the cantaora Fernanda de Utrera.