Eva Yerbabuena

Eva Yerbabuena in 2007.

Eva María Garrido Garcia, known professionally as Eva Yerbabuena, is a Spanish flamenco dancer. She formed her own dance company in 1998[1] and won Spain's National Dance Prize (Premio Nacional de Danza) in 2001.[2] She is considered one of flamenco's leading performers.[3][4]

Biography

Yerbabuena was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1970, but fifteen days after her birth went back to live in her parents' hometown in Granada, Spain. At age 11 she began her dance career by taking flamenco classes. Her professional career began at 15.[1]

She studied dramatic arts with Juan Furest and Jesús Domínguez. Afterwards she travelled to Cuba to learn choreography from Johannes García. She was given the name "Yerbabuena" by a friend, Francisco Manuel Díaz, after a flamenco singer named Fransquito Yerbabuena. She has collaborated with Manolete, Merche Esmeralda, Javier Latorre, Joaquín Cortés, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Pina Bausch. Eva Yerbabuena Ballet Flamenco was established in 1998 including her guitarist and husband Paco Jarana as musical director.

Films

In 1997 she appeared in Mike Figgis' documentary, Flamenco Women. In 2001 she featured in Figgis' film, Hotel. She also participated in Pulse: A Stomp Odyssey(2002) performing a Petenera with guitarist Paco Jarana that Variety described as the film's "showstopper"[5]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sanjoy Roy, "Step-by-step guide to dance: Eva Yerbabuena. By injecting traditional moves with bold theatrical flair, this Spanish dancer and choreographer brings flamenco thrillingly up to date." The Guardian, February 9, 2010.
  2. ↑ "Premio Nacional de Danza", Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y la Música (accessed 2014-05-17).
  3. ↑ Valerie Gladstone, "A heated discussion", Los Angeles Times, February 3, 2008. ("Since establishing her own company, she has received every major Spanish dance award and performed at home, elsewhere in Europe and in Asia, South America and the U.S.")
  4. ↑ Joan Acocella, "Stamp Your Feet", The New Yorker, February 11, 2002. ("Yerbabuena, I am told, is the hottest flamenco act in Spain. As for New York, no one else in the festival got the ovation she did.")
  5. ↑ Ronnie Scheib, "Pulse: A Stomp Odyssey.(Movie Review)." Daily Variety, October 24, 2002 ("The magnificent Spanish dancer Eva Yerbabuena, performing with a few instrumentalists on a bare rooftop in Spain's Alhambra, provides pic's showstopper, her sinuous, slow-building Flamenco exploding in dazzling, perfectly modulated crescendos of staccato-footed mastery.")

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