Carmen Tórtola Valencia

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Carmen Tórtola Valencia (1915)

Carmen Tórtola Valencia (June 18, 1882 - February 13, 1955) was a Spanish dancer, choreographer, costume designer, and painter. Born in Seville to a Catalan father (Florenc Tortola Ferrer, d. 1891) and Andalusian mother (Georgina Valencia Valenzuela, d. 1894), she was three years old when her family emigrated to London. In his book Tortola Valencia and Her Times (1982), Odelot Sobrac, one of his early biographers, said Tórtola Valencia developed a style that expressed emotion through movement and that she was inspired Isadora Duncan. A member of Generación del 13, her costumes are part of the collection of Centre de Documentació i Museu de les Arts Escèniques. Her Spanish modernismo style enabled a career as a solo concert dance artist who performed classic, Oriental, and Spanish pieces.[1] She made her debut at the Gaiety Theatre in London (1908), appearing at the German Wintergarten and the Folies Bergeres of Paris in the same year. She performed in Nuremberg and London in 1909. In 1911, she made her Spanish debut at the Romea Theatre of Madrid. She was at the Ateneo of Madrid in 1913.[2]

The Feminist

Tórtola Valencia was also a "pioneer Spanish feminist of the 20th century".[3] Being gay and having leftist ideas, Tórtola Valencia was jailed at the end of the Spanish civil war. In 1928, she met Magret Angeles-Vila and they were inseparable thereafter. She danced for the last time in 1930 in Quito. She began painting in Barcelona where she died in in 1955 and is buried at Poblenou Cemetery.[4]

References

  1. ↑ "Tórtola Valencia and Otherness". International Repertory of Music Literature. April 24, 2013. Retrieved 2 February 2014. 
  2. ↑ Pérez (2002), p. 609
  3. ↑ Pérez, Janet; Ihrie, Maureen (2002). The Feminist Encyclopedia of Spanish Literature: N-Z. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 608–. ISBN 978-0-313-32445-1. 
  4. ↑ "La leyenda de la bailarina Tórtola Valencia renace en una biografía". ABC. December 4, 2005. Retrieved 2 February 2014. 
  • Carlota Caulfield, "Carmen Tortola Valencia (1882 - 1955)", Corner, Vol. 2 (Spring 1999).
  • María Pilar Queralt del Hierro, Tortola Valencia, a woman in the shadows, Barcelona, Editorial Lumen, 2005.
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