Centenary Antonio Ruiz Soler

In 1952, film director Edgar Neville asked Antonio to create some original dances for the film Duende y misterio del flamenco. Alongside the first martinete ever to be danced, he included an initial, shorter version of Sonatas, set to music by Padre Soler, which would later become one of the most successful works in his repertoire. This first version already revealed that Antonio’s approach to Escuela Bolera did not follow the conventions of the traditional school, whether in its dance vocabulary, arm movements, castanet technique or Goya-inspired aesthetic. The Escuela Bolera that Antonio presented in a palatial setting, populated by infantas, courtiers and halberdiers, combined bolero tradition with classical dance in a work of great technical complexity. A year later, the first programme performed by his company, Antonio Ballet Español, included the complete suite of eight sonatas, danced by the entire company of 35 dancers in a series of different scenes. The premiere took place as part of the Granada International Festival of Music and Dance, held in the Jardines del Generalife.

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During the years in which the duo Rosario and Antonio lived and performed in the United States in the 1940s, they also appeared in several musical films made in Hollywood. One of these was Hollywood Canteen (1944), an ensemble production created to entertain soldiers fighting in the Second World War. The number set to an orchestral version of the traditional Andalusian piece known as El vito, included in the film, offers a glimpse of the kind of shows with which the pair toured throughout the Americas: a rapid interweaving of turns and heelwork in which spectacle took precedence over technique. Rubén Olmo chose this dance as a nod to Antonio Ruiz Soler’s work in cinema, a facet of his career that he would later continue in Spain, not only as a dancer but also as a leading actor.

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Rubén Olmo and Miguel Ángel Corbacho have created four pieces inspired by Antonio Ruiz Soler’s style, aesthetic and character. These choreographies run through the history of traditional flamenco, all the way from its origins, a progression that is reflected in both the costumes and the music. This journey through the song, dance and music of primordial flamenco passes through the flamenco palos that are often found in Antonio’s work: the zorongo, the martinete, the taranto and the caracoles. It follows the blueprint for set design that he used in his flamenco performances, but with more modern choreography.

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Taranto performed by Rubén Olmo

When Esther Jurado, leading guest dancer of the Ballet Nacional de España, asked the Argentinian choreographer and dancer Carlos Vilán to create a classical Spanish choreography for her, he pictured her in bata de cola dress, dancing to the score of Asturias de Albéniz – without even knowing that her mother was Asturian. He named this choreography Leyenda and first unveiled it at the gala of the Bucharest Opera in 1998.

As Director of the Ballet Nacional de España, Rubén Olmo wanted to include it in this programme because Albéniz’s composition was a staple in the repertoire of Antonio’s Ballet, although in those days it was performed by a male dancer. For Olmo, Carlos Vilán’s creation was a good fit for the programme because the choreographer had a deep understanding of the style of the maestro. Carlos Vilán worked closely with Antonio as répétiteur for La romería del Rocío, a work that María Rosa originally commissioned from Antonio for her company.

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Antonio Ruiz Soler’s interpretation of Pablo Sarasate’s music enhanced his reputation as both dancer and choreographer and became one of the jewels of his repertoire following its premiere in 1946 at the Teatro Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires. The influence of tap dance evident in the technique of this zapateado makes it a virtuosic example of stylised flamenco. In 1959, Antonio performed a version of this solo while walking along a country road in the film Honeymoon, a Spanish-British co-production directed by Michael Powell whose visual imagery recalls Gene Kelly in An American in Paris. Over the years, it has been performed by countless principal dancers from different companies, all of them seeking to follow Antonio’s maxim: “To dance it is to caress the floor; you have to speak to the floor, not kick it.”

Zapateado performed by Francisco Velasco at the Teatro de la Zarzuela (Madrid, 2020) and at the Centenario de Antonio Ruiz Soler

Zapateado performed by Mariano Bernal

This choreography elevates the stylisation of the popular dances in which Antonio Ruiz Soler was a true maestro. In this case, Antonio reimagined the Galician muñeira through classical eyes, combining corps de ballet and pas de deux. By including touches like scallop shells and floral arches, he took Galicia’s most popular dance from the town square to theatres around the world, showcasing the harmony and poetry of Ernesto Halffter’s notes on the legend of Santa Compaña.

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