Mariemma
Who is Mariemma?
Guillermina Martínez Cabrejas, known as Mariemma, was born on January 12, 1917, in Íscar, Valladolid, into a family of nine siblings. At just two years old she moved with her family to Paris, where her father, a shoemaker by trade, had emigrated in search of a better life; it was her mother who taught her her first fandangos, jotas and sevillanas. In Paris she studied at the dance school of the Théâtre du Châtelet, where she became a child soloist, and at nine she was recommended to Madame Gontcharova. She also trained with Francisco Miralles and Juan Martínez, the last living masters of the escuela bolera, dancing alongside her sister María Asunción, also a dancer.
Career
At twelve she was already a soloist at the Olympia theater in Paris and signed her first choreography, “Córdoba”, set to music by Albéniz. She danced with Carmen Amaya, with whom she created variations on chest turns, and took part in “El sombrero de tres picos” at La Scala in Milan alongside Antonio and choreographer Léonide Massine. She made her professional debut in Spain in 1943, at the Teatro Español in Madrid, and in 1955 founded her own company, the Mariemma Ballet de España — the first Spanish dance company to include a classical ballet master, Héctor Zaraspe — with which she toured Latin America, the United States and Europe; in 1958 she presented “Voyage vers l’amour” at the Brussels Expo alongside the Ballet del Marqués de Cuevas, and in 1966 she danced in the opera “Carmen” conducted by Herbert von Karajan.
She directed her own school from 1960, reactivated in the mid-1980s, and in 1969 took over as head of the dance department at the Real Conservatorio de Arte Dramático y Danza in Madrid, where she reorganized the teaching of Spanish dance into four major branches: escuela bolera, flamenco, folklore and stylized dance, establishing classical ballet as the training foundation. In 1978 she staged choreographies for the Ballet Nacional Español, and in 1997, already retired, she published her “Tratado de Danza Española. Mis caminos a través de la danza”.
Style
A continuer of the stylization begun by Antonia Mercé “La Argentina” and a champion of bringing the escuela bolera back to the stage, she was a key figure in restoring Spanish dance to musical societies and in giving it a structured teaching system; among her most notable students were Mariló Uguet, Mayte Bajo and Rosa Ruiz.
Legacy
She received the Premio Nacional de Danza (1950), the Gold Medal of the Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid (1951), the Premio Nacional de Coreografía (1955), the Medalla de Oro de las Bellas Artes (1981) and the Medalla de Isabel la Católica, and was also named an honorary member of UNESCO’s Dance Council. Her hometown of Íscar dedicated a street to her in 1946 and, later, the first museum devoted to Spanish dance. Married to the Cantabrian pianist Enrique Luzuriaga, she suffered a stroke in 2005 that left her in a deep coma from which she never woke; she died in Madrid on June 10, 2008, at the age of 91.