La Argentinita

Encarnación López Júlvez, better known as La Argentinita, (Buenos Aires, March 3, 1898 - New York, September 24, 1945) was a Spanish-Argentine flamenco dancer (bailaora), choreographer and singer together with her sister Pilar López Júlvez. La Argentinita was considered the highest expression of this art form during that time.Encarnación was the daughter of Spanish immigrants in Argentina, where her father decided to start a fabric business. Whilst living there, two of her siblings died due to an epidemic of scarlet fever. Consequently, she was brought to the north coast of Spain in 1901, where she began to learn Spanish regional dances. Her family developed a great interest in the world of flamenco, which in turn was the artistic motivation to embark on her professional career. When she was only four years old, she had the privilege of learning the art of the flamenco with her instructor Julia Castelao. Her first public performance was at the age of eight at the Teatro-Circo de San Sebastián, located in the Basque Country (Spain). Henceforth, she chose the name La Argentinita in deference to the also famous flamenco dancer Antonia Mercé (La Argentina). After travelling throughout Spain as a child prodigy, she settled in Madrid in order to work at Teatro La Latina, Teatro de la Comedia, Teatro de La Princesa, Teatro Apolo and Teatro Príncipe Alfonso. Her success led her to tour in Barcelona, Portugal and Paris, and then on Latin America. In the early 1920s she returned to Spain, where she began to work in Madrid before deciding to retire momentarily in 1926. Her return to the show business was accompanied by an artistic renewal that led her to the Generation of ‘27, in which she combined flamenco, tango, bulerías and boleros art. Eventually, she danced to the compositions of Manuel de Falla, Joaquín Turina, Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados, and Maurice Ravel. She led in the development of Ballet Español. Adapting pieces to popular tradition, she toured Europe, triumphing in Paris and Berlin and participating in the artistic movements of that time along with Spanish poets such as Rafael Alberti, Federico García Lorca, Edgar Neville or Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, who was an intellectual and a bullfighter, married man and her lover. La Argentinita retired a second time to maintain her clandestine relationship with the bullfighter and Spanish writer. However, the nostalgia for resuming her professional career made her return to the stage with the aid of Sánchez Mejías, who participated actively in the search and employment of interpreters for her subsequent performances. Among her early performances was as the Butterfly in the 1920 premiere of Federico García Lorca's musical play El maleficio de la mariposa.In 1931, they recorded five gramophone slate records of 25 cm and 78 revolutions per minute (rpm), which were accompanied by Lorca’s piano. The selection of songs was prepared, adapted and titled under the name of Colección de Canciones Populares Españolas by the poet. Among the ten chosen songs were Los cuatro muleros, Zorongo gitano, Anda Jaleo or En el Café de Chinitas. With the beginning of the Second Spanish Republic she formed her own ballet company called Bailes Españoles de la Argentinita together with her sister Pilar and the poet Federico García Lorca. La Argentinita staged several flamenco theatrical shows, including an adaption of Falla's El Amor Brujo (Love the Magician) in 1933, and Las Calles de Cádiz (The Streets of Cadiz) in 1933 and 1940.In this new stage of the entertainment industry, she travelled through Spain and Paris, where she was recognized as one of the most important flamenco artists of her time. The company of La Argentinita had flamenco figures of the standing of Juana la Macarrona, La Malena, Fernanda Antúnez, Rafael Ortega and Antonio de Triana, who was her first dancing partner until the 1940s. At the end of her tour around Spain, she brought her show to America due to the death of the love of her life, the bullfighter Ignacio Sánchez Mejías in 1934 after being gored in the Manzanares bullring. After this tragic event, the artist sought refuge in her work and moved to Buenos Aires to dance at the Teatro Colón, from there she embarked on a long American tour around almost all the continent’s countries. In 1936 she achieved remarkable success in New York. Afterwards, La Argentinita returned to Spain, but was forced to flee the country shortly before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. She travelled through Morocco, France, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Belgium and the United States, where she remained in exile in New York. From then until 1945, the year of her death, she developed her career and became one of the biggest stars of international dance, and even participated in cinematographic works. In 1943 she presented the flamenco troupe El Café de Chinitas at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, with her own choreography, texts by Lorca, scenery by Salvador Dalí and the orchestra directed by José Iturbi. In addition, she also performed at the Washington DC Water Gate with her sister Pilar López Júlvez, also recognized as a bailora and choreographer. On May 28, 1945 she performed her last performance of the orchestral work El Capricho Español at the Metropolitan, which was composed in 1887 by Nikolai Rimski-Kórsakov and based on Spanish melodies. At the end of the event, she had to be admitted to a hospital where she died on September 24 of 1945 due to a tumor located in her abdomen. Nevertheless, she did not want to have it operated inasmuch as she refused to abandon the dance. Her body was repatriated to Spain in December and buried in the Spanish capital. That same year, the company of Bailes Españoles de la Argentinita was dissolved. Among the honors she received after her death, was a plaque consecrated at the Metropolitan Opera House, positioned among the medals of Alfonso X El Sabio and La Orden de Isabel la Católica intending to reward her merits in the field of culture. She chose the name La Argentinita in deference to dancer La Argentina.