Pilar López Júlvez

Pilar López Júlvez (4 June 1912, San Sebastián – 25 March 2008, Madrid) was a Spanish choreographer and ballerina (bailaora). Encarnación López Júlvez (1898-1945), known as La Argentinita, was her older sister.

Pilar López was admired for her Ballet Español. She had become famous as a flamenco dancer, among her extensive performance credits: the 1933 flamenco-inspired staging of Falla's ballet El Amor Brujo, and the 1952 film Duende y misterio del flamenco.[1] The 1933 choreography for Falla's ballet, according to Antonio de Triana, was "achieved through a mingling of ideas and improvisations" in which Pilar joined her sister and others its creation.[2] The innovative film had no plot, but featured fourteen segments each focused on a flamenco cante or palo. Here Pilar López danced with Alejandro Vega, doing la caña.[3][4]

After her sister's early death, Pilar formed her own flamenco dance company and mounted theatrical shows. She realized a continuing success. Many came to enjoy the well-crafted performances.[5] Yet during this era of ópera flamenco such shows seemed to direct their attention to audiences unfamiliar with flamenco.[6] Accordingly, this era was also critiqued by some aficionados whose claim was their savoring of the fine points of the art.[7][8]

"Pilar's dancing is feminine and quietly moving". She also possessed a "talent for forming fine male dancers in her company". In the 1940s her dancers on tour included José Greco, before he formed his own company. Later she "strongly influenced the formation of... Antonio Gades" who, starting at age fifteen, toured with her troupe for eight years. In 1962 he was "appointed the first maestro and choreographer in the Scala of Milan". Acclaimed through "years of artistic success" Pilar and her husband Tomás Ríos, a musician and composer, resided in Madrid where they later retired.[9][10]

Notes
  1. Manuel Ríos Vargas, Antología del Baile Flamenco (Sevilla: Signatura de Flamenco c. 2001), e.g., p. 197 (Ballet Español), p. 198 (flamenco: ballet, and film). The ballet's staging was by her sister La Argentinita (p. 115). The film was directed by Edgar Neville (p. 198).
  2. D. E. Pohren, Lives and Legends of Flamenco (Madrid 1964, 1988), p. 368 (quote re improvising the dance mix [including Ballet Español]). Also her sister's later staging of Las Calles de Cádiz (p. 226, cf. p. 125).
  3. Paco Sevilla, Queen of the Gypsies (San Diego 1999), pp. 314-315 (la caña). The film won a prize at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival.
  4. Pilar and Alejandro performed as dance partners for many years. Ríos Vargas, Antología del Baile Flamenco (c.2001), p. 197.
  5. Ríos Vargas, Antología del Baile Flamenco (c. 2001) p.197 (her company, success).
  6. Pohren, Lives and Legends of Flamenco (1988), p. 226, states a popular view: if done right theater can present "authentic flamenco" to the public, although it was more effective "for audiences completely ignorant of flamenco" (p. 387). A gypsy who danced in Pilar's troupe was proud to learn "theatricality and stylization" which he considered "superior to just plain flamenco dancing" (quotes at 387).
  7. Felix Grande, Memoria del Flamenco (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe 1979), vol. 2, pp. 517-539; ópera flamenco not creative (519), audiences not familiar with the art (526), zarzuela flamenca (535-536).
  8. Manuel Ríos Ruiz, Introducción al Cante Flamenco (Madrid: Ediciones Istmo 1972), pp. 61, 63 (ópera flamenco).
  9. Pohren, Lives and Legends of Flamenco (1988), pp. 229-230, 229 (three quotes), 230 (success quote, Tomás Ríos); 201 (José Greco), 204-205 (Antonio Gades). Pohren refers to Pilar's troupe, before her retirement, as the Ballet of Pilar López (p. 387).
  10. Ríos Vargas, Antología del Baile Flamenco (c. 2001), p. 197 (her star dancers; her Madrid home, Tomás Ríos).
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