Text: Estela Zatania
Photos: Diccionario Enciclopédico Ilustrado del Flamenco (José Blas Vega, Manuel Ríos Ruiz)
| I saw Manuela for the first time in 1965 at the Spanish Pavilion of the New York World’s Fair when, at just 24, her complete company had come to represent Spanish culture to the world. A young teenaged girl, who must have been me since I have the memory, spoke with another of the same age, one of the dancers from the group, at the door to the dressing-room. She told me her name was Cristina, last name «Hoyos with ‘H’». But the person I wanted to see was Manuela, see her up close and try figure out if in her facial expression or words, it would be possible to fathom the mystery of her dancing which had touched me so deeply.
At a time when Carmen Amaya had popularized a type of dance that was externalized and dynamic, based on her intense personality and extraordinary strength, Manuela sought an alternative route to duende. That of the «escuela sevillana» or Sevilla school, scarcely defined up until that point, as she had received it from her maestro Enrique el Cojo. It’s a discreet and stately way of dancing, proud but reserved, the dignity of women above all else. Even within that aesthetic, Manuela had a personality of her own that was unmistakable. She rejected superficial femininity, she rejected the percussive fireworks so typical of the flamenco dancing of the era, and delivered her weighty message with serene elegance, her head held high, a strange but expressive rigidity in the hands, dry and serious in every single movement. With her elegant figure, she popularized long dresses with a simple line, and proved it was possible to stage a large show completely based on flamenco dance and song. Other companies of the era offered a mixed repertoire that included regional and semi-classical Spanish dance in addition to flamenco. Manuela Vargas was a true flamenco fan and surrounded herself with talent like Fosforito, Naranjito de Triana, Manuel Mairena, Curro Malena, Beni de Cádiz, el Chocolate, Lebrijano and, in an unforgettable recording, Fernanda and Bernarda de Utrera among many others. She also had exquisite taste in guitarists: Juan Maya ‘Marote’, the Habichuelas and José Cala ‘El Poeta’ were her regular accompanists, and later on, Ramón de Algeciras. With a staff like that to back her up, she created forms for the caña, mirabrás and taranto, and was the first to dance the free-style petenera of Pastora Pavón. At the Spanish pavilion she did four different shows every single day, each one devoted to a specific set of cantes, a veritable anthology of flamenco dance.
I remember the magical sound of her long bata de cola of white nylon crunching with each step. Under the blacklight that made the white train of ruffles glow, she floated across the stage with the unsettling tense calm of figures painted by Marc Chagall. There were none of the jumps, kicks or other tricks to make the train perform as is the norm nowadays, but rather she carried it with natural grace, like an extension of her body. Manuela is mainly rememebered for her role in «Medea», with music by Manolo Sanlúcar, and other collaborations beginning in the 1980’s. But her true greatness became manifest many years earlier when she changed the aesthetic of women’s flamenco dance and was the goddess of her era. Highlights of the life of Manuela Hermoso Vargas, «Manuela Vargas» to flamenco fans, now and forever:
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