Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T13:30:56.326Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Early Modern Dance in Spain: Tórtola Valencia, Dancer of the Historical Intuition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Iris Garland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Spain's contribution to the evolution of theatrical dance is acknowledged within the categories of ballet and ethnic dance. Spanish folk dance elements have been incorporated into the classical ballet vocabulary, and exotic adaptations of dances from Spain have enriched the established ballet repertory: Fanny Ellsler's Cachucha, Petipa's “Spanish Dance” divertissement in Swan Lake, and Leonide Massine's Tricorne (The Three Cornered Hat) are wellknown examples. Soloists such as Pastora Imperio, La Argentina, José Greco, and Carmen Amaya have popularized around the world what has become known as the Spanish style of dance (for example, fandango, bolero, seguidillas, flamenco). However, Spain has not been associated with the history of early modern dance, a phenomenon largely attributed to a handful of American and German dancers.

Tórtola Valencia (1882–1955) claimed Spain as her country of origin, and made a flamboyant contribution to early modern dance in western Europe, Spain, and Latin America from 1908–1930. Her vast, eclectic repertory of Oriental, classical, and Spanish themes echoed the preoccupations of her contemporaries with whom she was favorably compared—in particular, Isadora Duncan, Maud Allan, Ruth St. Denis, Mikhail Fokine, and Anna Pavlova (1). In her time she received critical acclaim as one of the most famous dancers in Europe, yet she is not cited in the English language history of dance (2). This is only part of the mystery that weaves through the fabric of Tórtola Valencia's intriguing life and career.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , Fall 1997 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson-Imbert, Enrique. 1970. Rubén Darío and the Fantastic Element in Literature. Translated by Bonner, Anne. In Rubén Darío Centenmei Studies, edited by Gonzalez-Gerth, Miguel and Schade, George D.. Austin: University of Texas.Google Scholar
Barañano, Kosme María de. 1986. Tortola Valencia: Umzu tanzen, muss ich zuerst die Musik spüren. Ballett-Journal. Das Tanzarchiv, Koln 34/3 (June): 76–81.Google Scholar
Buonaventura, Wendy. 1989. Serpent of the Nile. London: Saqi Books.Google Scholar
Bushnell, G.H.S. 1957. Peru. NY: Praeger.Google Scholar
Case, Sue-Ellen. 1988. Feminism and Theatre. London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clèment, Catherine. 1988. Opera, or the Undoing of Women. Translated by Wing, Betsy, forward by McClary, Susan. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press.Google Scholar
Copeland, Roger. 1996. The Search for Origins. Dance Theatre Journal 13/1, (Summer): 8–14.Google Scholar
Daly, Ann. 1992. Dance History and Feminist Theory: Reconsidering Isadora Duncan and the Male Gaze. In Gender in Performance: The Presentation of Difference in the Performing Arts, edited by Senelick, Laurence. Hanover: University of New England Press, 239–259.Google Scholar
Darío, Ruben. 1987. Poesía. Introducción y selección de Gimferrer, Pere, Barcelona: Planeta.Google Scholar
Fontbona, Francese and de Vellena, Luis Antonio. 1988–1989. Una Aproximación al arte frívolo: Tòrtola Valencia y José de Zamora. Coordinated by Peláez, Andrés and Andura, Fernanda. Teatro Albéniz, Comunidad de Madrid/Consejería de Cultura.Google Scholar
García-Girón, Edmundo. 1986. La Azul Sonrisa: Disquisición sobre la adjetivación modernista. In EI Modernismo, edited by Litvak, Lily. Madrid: Taurus Editions, 121–141. Originally published in Revista Iberoamericana XX/39 (March 1955): 95–116.Google Scholar
Gardner, Vivien and Rutherford, Susan, eds. 1992. The New Woman and Her Sisters: Feminism and Theatre 1850–1914. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Garland, Iris. 1995. Modernist Values and Historical Neglect: The Case of Tórtola Valencia. Proceedings of the Fifth Study of Dance Conference. University of Surrey, Guildford, England, 115–23.Google Scholar
Huxley, Michael. 1983. Early European Modern Dance. In Dance History: A Methodology for Study, edited by Adshead, Janet and Layson, June. London: Dance Books, Ltd., 147–52.Google Scholar
Huyssen, Andreas. 1986. Mass Culture as Woman: Modernism's Other. In After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 44–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de la Vega, Inca Garcilaso. 1800. Historia general del Perú o comentarios reales de los Incas. 13 vols. Originally written 1609, Madrid; cited in William Rowe and Vivian Schelling, Memory and Modernity: Popular Culture in Latin America, London: Verso, 1991.Google Scholar
Kinney, Troy and West, Margaret. [1914] 1936. The Dance: Its Place in Art and Life. NY: Tudor Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Kushigian, Julia A. 1991. Orientalism in the Hispanic Literary Tradition. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, Reina. 1996. Gendering Orientalism: Race, Femininity and Representation. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Litvak, Lily. 1990. España 1900: Modernismo, anarquismo, y fin de siglo. Barcelona: Anthropos.Google Scholar
Llorens, Pilar, et al. 1987. Història de la dansa a Catalunya. Barcelona: Edición especial de la Caixa de Barcelona.Google Scholar
Moses, Claire Goldberg. 1984. French Feminism in the Nineteenth Century. Albany: State University of New York.Google Scholar
Murias Vila, Carlos. 1992. La magicienne aux yeux d'abime: mystere et legende de Tortola Valencia. Danser, no. 103. Paris (September): 24–27.Google Scholar
Paz, Octavio. 1986. Traducción y metáfora. In El modernismo, edited by Litvak, Lily. Madrid: Taurus Editions, 97–117. Originally published in Los hijos del limo, Barcelona: Seix Barral (1974), 115–141.Google Scholar
Peypoch, Irene. 1984. Tortola Valencia. Barcelona: Gent Nostra no. 30, Ed. Thor, Nou Art.Google Scholar
Los poetas á Tòrtola Valencia. 1908–1930. Poems, tributes, and transcripts of radio interviews, Vols. I and II, Tòrtola Valencia Archive, Institut del Teatre, Centre d'Investigación, Documentació, i Difusió (CIDD), Deputació de Barcelona, Spain. 1952. Bound photocopy.Google Scholar
Rowe, William and Schelling, Vivian. 1991. Memory and Modernity: Popular Culture in Latin America. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Djeli, Sahary. 1911. Woman of Mystery, Dancing Times no. 5 (February): 110.Google Scholar
Said, Edward. 1979. Orientalism. NY: Vintage.Google Scholar
Sieburth, Stephanie. 1994. Inventing High and Low: Literature, Mass Culture, and Uneven Modernity in Spain. Durham and London: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Solrac, Odelot. 1982. Tortola Valencia and Her Times. NY: Vantage Press.Google Scholar
Stevens, Mary Anne. 1984. Western Art and Its Encounter with the Islamic World 1798–1914. The Orientalists: Delacroix to Matisse. London: Royal Academy of Arts/Wedenfeld and Nicolson.Google Scholar
Tòrtola Valencia Archive, Institut del Teatre, Centre d'Investigación, Documentació, i Difusió (CIDD), Deputació de Barcelona, Spain. Newspaper clippings, photos, performance Programs and costumes from 1908–1930.Google Scholar
Valencia, Tórtola. 1911. “Notes on the Dance.” Personal journal. Institut del Teatre, Centre d' Investigació, Documentació, i Difusió (CIDD), Deputació de Barcelona, Spain.Google Scholar
Wheelwright, Julie. 1992. The Fatal Lover: Mata Hari and the Myth of Women in Espionage. London: Collins & Brown.Google Scholar