La Argentina: Flamenco and the Spanish Avant Garde

Antonia Mercé, stage-named “La Argentina,” was the most celebrated Spanish dancer ofthe early twentieth century. Her intensive musical and theatrical collaborations with members of the Spanish vanguard— Manuel de Falla, Federico Garcia Lorca, Enrique Granados, Néstor de la Torre, Joaquin Nin—and with renowned Andalusian Gypsy dancers reflect her importance as an artistic symbol for contemporary Spain and its cultural history. When she died in 1936, newspapers around the world mourned the passing ofthe “Flamenco Pavlova.” “La Argentina is without doubt the most influential Spanish dance artist of this, or any other, century. This is the first serious attempt to evaluate her contribution not only in the strictly dance field, but in the wider context of Spanish culture and the artistic movements ofthis century. It will be ofgreat value to music and dance historians for its account of La Argentina’s long collaboration with Manuel de Falla and its vivid descriptions of some of her important choreographic work, which is all the more valuable in the absence of any notated record.” — Ivor Guest, author of The Ballet ofthe Enlightenment Ninotchka Devorah Bennahum is Assistant Professor of Speech / Theater and Dance at Long Island University. She has taught dance history at Swarthmore and Princeton and published numerous articles and reviews on dance.