Aniya la Gitana | |
|---|---|
 Statue of Aniya la Gitana in Ronda, Spain. | |
| Born | Ana Amaya Molina 1855 |
| Died | 1933 (aged 77–78) Barcelona, Spain |
| Nationality | Spanish |
| Other names | Anilla la de Ronda |
| Occupation(s) | Flamenco guitarist, singer, dancer |
Aniya la Gitana (Aniya the Gypsy) was the stage name used by Ana Amaya Molina also known as Anilla la de Ronda (1855-1933). She was a Spanish flamenco guitarist, singer and dancer.
Molina was born in 1855 in Ronda, in southern Spain. She began her artistic career playing in cafes in her home region of southern Spain, where she used to sing and accompany herself with her guitar. [1]
She met the singer Antonio Chacón and the singer Paca Aguilera, another gypsy from Ronda, Spain, with whom she performed in 1890 at Café Chinitas in Málaga, Spain, which at that time was a hot spot for flamenco. [2]
Anecdotes testify to her notoriety. [1] [3]
In 1930, then aged 75, she was one of the main attractions of Andalusian Week at the Barcelona Exhibition. She sang and danced there, accompanied on guitar by Ramón Montoya. [1]
Gaspar Núñez de Prado in his work Cantaores Andaluces dedicated a chapter to her. Among the comments he published about Aniya's flamenco personality, these stand out: [1]
"She feels art as the heart that feels it the most; she conceives beauty as the brain constituted to conceive it better; she feels the generosities of that art, as the soul that can feel it most intensely; but her heart, her brain and her soul absolutely human, in every meaning of the word; they only see in their art a vehicle to send from their bowels to infinity all the expression of their exquisite tenderness...” "That is what has made her more sympathetic, even more than her own qualities for cante (song), and that is due, in the first place, to the artistic triumphs she has achieved and the applause she has obtained." (Núñez de Prado, 1904) [1]
In a 24 June 1930 article by D. José Benavides that appeared in Estampa, he called Aniya "the queen of the gypsies" and said:
“The house where Anita Amaya lives in Ronda is a place of pilgrimage. The judge, the mayor, the pharmacist, the notary, the ladies of high and low conditions, all parade in front of her home, archive of popular knowledge. Daily, from Barcelona, a telegram is sent to the town hall secretary in Ronda, to say that the old gypsy woman eats well, sleeps little and drinks a lot. Telegrams are also sent to the gypsies who, already impatient, are demanding her return. But she does not want to leave." [1] [4] [5]
She died in 1933 in Barcelona at about 78 years of age. In her memory, the City of Ronda dedicates an annual flamenco song contest to her. [5]
Flamenco is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and Murcia. In a wider sense, the term is used to refer to a variety of both contemporary and traditional musical styles typical of southern Spain. Flamenco is closely associated to the gitanos of the Romani ethnicity who have contributed significantly to its origination and professionalization. However, its style is uniquely Andalusian and flamenco artists have historically included Spaniards of both gitano and non-gitano heritage.
Carmen Amaya was a Spanish Romani flamenco dancer and singer, born in the Somorrostro district of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
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Sabicas was a Spanish flamenco guitarist of Romani origin.
The Romani in Spain, generally known by the endonym Calé, or the exonym gitanos, belong to the Iberian Romani subgroup known as Calé, with smaller populations in Portugal and in Southern France. Their sense of identity and cohesion stems from their shared value system, expressed among gitanos as las leyes gitanas.
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Silverio Franconetti y Aguilar, also known simply as Silverio was a singer and the leading figure of the period in flamenco history known as The Golden Age, which was marked by the creation and definition of most musical forms or palos, the increasing professionalization of flamenco artists, and the shift of center from private gatherings and taverns towards commercial venues called cafés cantante. Silverio's voice was called “the honey from Alcarria”.
Cantes de ida y vuelta is a Spanish expression literally meaning roundtrip songs. It refers to a group of flamenco musical forms or palos with diverse musical features, which "travelled back" from Latin America as styles that, having originated in the interplay between musical traditions of peninsular Spain and those of Latin America, developed into renewed forms that were reintroduced in Spain. Usually they have a more mellow character than the more traditional flamenco songs.
José Tejada Marín, known as Pepe Marchena and also as Niño de Marchena in the first years of his career, was a Spanish flamenco singer who achieved great success in the ópera flamenca period (1922–1956). Influenced by singers like Antonio Chacón, he carried to the extreme the tendency to a more mellow and ornamented style of flamenco singing. Owing to his particular vocal conditions and singing style, he excelled mainly in palos (styles) like fandangos, cantes de ida y vuelta and cantes libres, contributing to making them the most popular flamenco styles in the era of the ópera flamenca, and created a new cante de ida y vuelta, the colombiana, later recorded by many other artists like El Lebrijano or Enrique Morente. He was also the first flamenco singer to use an orchestra to accompany flamenco singing, though later he returned to the guitar.
Juana la Macarrona was a Spanish flamenco dancer (bailaora).
The cante flamenco, meaning "flamenco singing", is one of the three main components of flamenco, along with toque and baile (dance). Because the dancer is front and center in a flamenco performance, foreigners often assume the dance is the most important aspect of the art form — in fact, it is the cante which is the heart and soul of the genre. A cante singer is a cantaor or cantaora.
El Concurso del Cante Jondo was a fiesta of flamenco arts, music, song, and dance, held in Granada in 1922. Conceived and initiated by composer Manuel de Falla, it enjoyed early and strong support from the poet Federico García Lorca. The two-day evening event was held outdoors at the Alhambra. The show included the best of well-known flamenco artists, but the contest's prize money was reserved for amateur performers.
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