Flamenco Show Is Beginning of Painter's Tale
Writer and artistic director Theresa Cardenas brings the famous painting “La Chiquita Piconera” (The Little Coal Girl) by Romero de Torres to life in the Flamenco dance drama “El Pintor”
by Emily Van Cleve
The dramatic movements associated with Spanish dance have always interested Theresa Cardenas, but the storytelling possibilities inherent in flamenco have captured her heart and mind. During a visit in 2001 to the Museum of Julio de Torres in Cordoba, Spain, with Spanish choreographer Antonio Hidaglo, she felt inspired to create the storyline for her new flamenco dance drama El Pintor.
"I studied all of Romero de Torres' paintings together and was really taken by his most famous work, 'La Chiquita Piconera (The Little Coal Girl),' " recalled Cardenas, who was born in Santa Fe and has studied flamenco in Spain and in the United States. "At first, I thought I would create a dance drama that reflected the emotions I experienced in the group of paintings. But the more I became fascinated with 'La Chiquita Piconera,' the more I wanted to focus on an individual and not a lot of people."
"El Pintor" is based on the life of the young girl in Romero de Torres' well-known 1930 painting and danced by Adriana Maresma Fois from Spain and Elena Osuna and Maritza Tarfur from Albuquerque. It took a bit of research for Cardenas to find out that the girl in the painting was Teresa Maria Lopez, a teenage maid in Romero de Torres' house in Spain. Some people thought the painter and his model were having an affair at the time, but Cardenas doubts those rumors were true.
"Teresa Maria Lopez eventually married and had a family," Cardenas said. "She spent her entire life in Spain and died a few years ago at the age of 97."
"El Pintor" portrays Lopez as well as the myriad emotions that Romero de Torres expressed through his body of work. Born in 1874, Romero de Torres was the son of a painter who began his training at age 10. Most of his formal education took place in Spain, but he also traveled throughout Europe to study different painting styles and techniques. His career was interrupted in 1914 when World War I broke out and he fought for the Allies as a pilot. After the war he became a professor of clothing design in Madrid. It was during a trip to South America in the 1920s that he became ill and never fully recovered. He died in Cordoba, Spain, in 1930 at age 55.
"Romero de Torres painted the emotions of love, pain, tragedy and death," said Cardenas. "The three dancers in the show represent the emotions that he experienced in his life and in the lives of his models."
Denver-based choreographer Pablo Rodarte created the show's choreography, while Cardenas acts as producer, writer and artistic director. Although Cardenas, an active flamenco dancer living in Albuquerque, could have danced any one of the parts in the production, she preferred not to mix directing with dancing.
Music is performed by guitarists Jose Valle Fajardo and Calvin Hazen, singer Vicente Griego and singer/ percussionist Francsico Javier Orozco. Behind the musicians and dancers is a constantly- changing projection of paintings by Romero de Torres.
"I like to call this show the beginning of the story," Cardenas said. "This is part one of a continuing series. I have much more to say about this story."
