Carmelita Maracci (July 17, 1908 – July 26, 1987) was an American concert dancer and choreographer who creatively combined ballet arts and Spanish techniques. She excelled when before an audience with dance experience, receiving enthusiastic praise from performers and critics. Her stage career began in the mid-1920s. Her programs often were of her own design. From the 1950s she remained influential as a Los Angeles-based teacher.
Origins Carmelita Maracci was born in Goldfield, Nevada, the daughter of Josephine Gauss and her second husband Joseph Maracci, a restaurateur and gambler. Her French German mother was a concert-level pianist. Her father, Italian and Spanish, had considered a career singing opera; his father was first cousin to Adelina Patti (1843–1919), a celebrated soprano.Adelina, an Italian born in Madrid, came of age in New York. She became a world-wide star of the opera, starting in 1861 at Covent Garden. "Adelina Patti", BBC Wales. Hence the name Carmelita Patti Maracci.Elspeth Kuang (2005), pp. 411–412, at 411: birth and parents. Some doubt as to birth name.Carmelita Maracci Papers, re her parents, her name, the soprano Adelina Patti.Jack Jones (1987) writes, "She was christened Adelina Patti Maracci, but took the name Carmelita early in her dancing career." "Carmelita was brought up as Spanish." Her mother had told her that she was born in Montevideo, Uruguay; Maracci only learned differently much later from her husband.Agnes de Mille (1990), p. 54 (second husband, birth place, Montevideo); p. 57 (quote: as Spanish).Carmelita Maracci Papers: her paternal grandmother was from Montevideo.
After the family moved to San Francisco her formal schooling began at a convent. Later in Fresno she continued her dance lessons, while attending a private school for girls. "Carmie was her mother's spoiled darling." On a nine-foot Steinway her mother played, music to which "Carmie danced, from the moment she could move--danced before she could walk," according to what choreographer Agnes de Mille later learned.Kuang (2005), schooling.de Mille (1990), p. 54 (earliest dancing to mother's piano, quotes). She "never mentioned her father," de Mille opines.
In 1924, when sixteen, she relocated with her grandmother to Los Angeles, to widen her horizons and advance her dancing skills. She made her debut, traveled to study in New York City, toured with a show, then came to California.Kuang (2005), to Los Angeles with her German grandmother, begins career. In Hollywood during the mid-1930s Agnes and Carmelita hung out together. De Mille described the situation and people:
"I found the atmosphere of the house, comforting. There was always a group of radicals, malcontents, and indigent writers, intermingled with painters and dancers, waiting to be recharged by Carmelita's personality, for she was great fun to be with."
Maracci's dancing was already special; it sparked "extravagant" rumors. "It is no ordinary experience to discover one evening that an intimate, a known, well-loved, daily companion, has genius." In her studio, the night before Maracci left for a San Francisco concert, de Mille saw her dance for the first time. She writes, "my jaw dropped". Adding, "This girl worked with thunder."de Mille (1990), pp. 54, 55, 56 (quotes). "The dance she showed me was her 'Cante Jondo' or 'Deep Song'" (p. 56). De Mill then quotes several paragraphs from her contemporary notes (pp. 56–57; on how Maracci danced, pp. 51-53).de Mille (1980), pp. 111-115.
New styles of dancing
In 1926 at the Hollywood Bowl Maracci had performed as a soloist, by way of her dance teacher Ernest Belcher. In New York she studied several dance styles, among her teachers: Hippolita Mora and Helba Huara (Spanish dance),Helba Huara (1905-1986) of Cuzco was a modern Spanish dancer with a distinctive style of castanets, who also performed Peruvian dances. She recalled the modernismo of Carmen Tórtola Valencia. Bernal (2020), pp. 78-81 (Huara, and Maracci p.80); 46-53 (Valencia). and Enrico Zanfretta and Luigi Albertieri (ballet). Again as a soloist she toured with a dance company; in San Francisco she joined a small troupe. Maracci then ceased performing. While in seclusion she created her new style of dancing.de Mille (1990), p. 54. Her teachers: Mora (Spanish), Zanfretta and Albertieri (ballet), during the late 1920s in New York, then California.
In 1930, she was ready to present for the first time "a program of her own works" to music by Ravel, de Falla, Granados, and Schumann, probably held at Trinity Auditorium.Then a site of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. A similar debut in New York City came in 1937.Kuang (2005), re H. Bowl, NY study and tour, L.A. debut, N.Y.C. 1937; her teachers.Carmelita Maracci Papers, debut quote.Cf. Carmelita Maracci website: list of her performances. Her arrival in New York was troubled by her sponsor's sudden default. Yet undeterred she continued, first on stage at the 92nd Street Y, then at other theatrical venues. Her performances were well received.
"Camelita Maracci, the fiery and brilliantly talented West Coast dancer, who combined ballet and Spanish dance" first performed at the Y. "Maracci mesmerized New Yorkers with her smoldering passion and unique movement style. Here were wonderfully spiraling hands, a spine that arched proudly, and dazzling technical footwork."Jackson (2000), pp. 123–124 (her troubled arrival), 124 (pictured), 125 (her dance performance, quotes). New York's Dance Observer praised her. The 92nd St. Y was a well-known center for modern dance. Maracci is here listed among the "little known artists" (pp. 123, 125).Kuang (2005), at the 92nd Street Y Maracci danced before an audience of "artists and intellectuals".Joan Bayley website, "Carmelita was never purely ballet, she was very experimental. We did lots of avant-garde and a lot of things heavily influenced by Spanish dance." In the late 1930s Bayley and other students accompanied Maracci on dancing tours, including to New York.
To ballet she added Spanish dance.Bernal (2020), p.2. A new style of Spanish dance Escuela Bolera emerged at the Madrid court in the eighteenth century. It was a synthesis of the Ballet from dancers of the Italian Opera and native folk dances. Folk dances included Fandangos, Jotas, Sevillanas.Marina Grut, The Bolero School: An Illustrated History of the Bolero, the Seguidillas and the Escuela Bolera (Binsted: Dance Books 2002).Adolfo Salazar, La Música de España (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe 1972), vol.2, p.76: a type of French ballet was sometimes performed in Spanish theaters during the 17th century.La Meri, Spanish Dancing (New York: A. S. Barnes 1948), pp. 9, 11, 14 (18th century bolero), cf. 23-27. Some techniques derived from baile flamenco.Manuel de Falla (1922), in Molina (1998), pp. 209, 211. The composer concluded the major non-native elements in Spanish flamenco music were: early Byzantine music, medieval Arabic music, and more recently the music of Gitanos (Gypsies).Cante jondo is the song counterpart to Flamenco dance. Inspired by flamenco Manuel de Falla, in his 1919 ballet El Sombrero de Tres Picos (French: Le Tricorne) delivered its music orchestrated. Choreographer Léonide Massine used elements from the two dance arts.Lynn Garafola (1989), pp. 88, 243, 253. Produced by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1919, de Falla's Le Tricorne (The Three-cornered Hat) was choreographed by Léonide Massine, with stage designs by Pablo Picasso. Cf. pp. 88-90: de Falla's early flamenco dance projects, e.g., the 1915 ballet El Amor Brujo.Léonide Massine (1968), pp. 114–118, 122: describes the flamenco and Spanish origin of both the music and the dance in Le Tricorne. In 1922 Falla and poet García Lorca with a coalition of artists produced Concurso de Cante Jondo, a flamenco song and dance festival in Granada.Molina Fajardo (1998), pp. 49–50; cf. 169–175, 177–208, 209–226. De Falla favored the appellation 'Cante jondo', and made a point of only calling the debased versions of the music 'flamenco' (Molina, p. 173, quoting de Falla (1922)). Maracci apparently followed de Falla's special terminology, not using the word 'flamenco'.Cf. Álvarez Caballero (1994, 1998), pp. 213–214: de Falla attributes higher musical qualities to 'Cante Jondo' and distinguishes it from other song types included in what "common people call flamenco" ['el vulgo llama flamencos'].de Falla (1922), in Molina (1998), pp. 209–226, quote at 212.
Maracci's innovative fusions of ballet and baile were cutting-edge works. Whether solo or small group, some critics saw her shows as 'hybrid dance'.Snodgrass (2015), p. 153, here citing de Falla's ballet El Amor Brujo and "the flamenco posture [of] concert dancer Carmelita Maracci... ."Perlmutter (1985), "[S]he refused to perform on stage a ballet from the repertory or an authentic Spanish dance--although her command of both was formidable. She called herself 'a hybrid' and created her own highly individual, interstylistic works." For her pas seul, with a subtlety both novel and smooth, she'd syncopate the castanets.Castanets, heartbeats to the music, may add "an intellectual power". De Mille (1963), p.55. Known in Roman Hispania castanets were more recently adopted by some Gitano bailaoras. La Meri, Spanish Dancing (1948), p.29. Seldom used in flamenco. Gilbert Chase, The Music of Spain (New York: Norton 1941, Dover 1959), p.250. Cross-rhythms come from the dancer's zapateado, and the pitos, palmas, and also jaleos (p.252). Simply done with the eloquence of her dancer's art, her idiosyncratic solo designs worked to dazzle audiences. These rare shows were worth the wait, the long lines. Freely she'd chosen from several traditions to create her works of art. From early neoclassical ballet she took, or from popular Spanish dance,Pastora Imperio (1887-1979), the popular Spanish dancer, of her 1907 South America tour Maracci spoke. Bernal (2020), p.45.To La Argentina (1890-1936) she compared herself. De Mille (1990), p.59. not specifically flamenco yet with its moods and lines.Cf. Kuang (2005), e.g., zapateado, castanets, Cante jondo.Joan Bayley (website), 'Early life and training': in the 1930s Bayley performed a 'flamenco' dance number taught her by Maracci, whose classes included heel work, hand clapping, and castanets.She was superb "in the Spanish and gypsy styles". John Martin in The New York Times 1937, at Carmelita Maracci website.
In Los Angeles in the late 1920s she had brought together in her person the ingredients to craft one-of-a-kind performances. "Maracci began to experiment with choreography that was a blend of ballet and Spanish dance techniques."Jennifer Dunning (1987): experiment quote. From her conjuring of the two styles emerged a singularity. John Martin, then dance critic at The New York Times, came to conclude: "Both styles are merely materials out of which she fashions an art that is altogether personal, purely subjective in its creative approach, and utterly unique."John Martin in 1946, quoted by Dunning (1987). Later Agnes de Mille retold it:
Plainly and simply, Carmelita's best dances were the most passionate and powerfully devised solos I have ever seen. ... ¶ Her line was visually flawless. ¶ She baffled criticism because her technique fell into two categories: ballet, which, although impeccably correct, was not classic in style, and Spanish, which was virtuoso in its range but highly unorthodox in form and flavor. She had no wish to perpetuate aesthetic traditions and used only those stock gestures so deeply imbued with emotion as to have become, under her manipulation, original."de Mille (1990), p.58 (her quote "Carmelita's best dances").