Yes, apparently it is history week at Surrenders. So I had never heard of Carmen Amaya before a random tweet brought her and her amazing body of work to my attention. She was perhaps the world’s best flamenco dancer, male or female. Of Spanish Romani descent, she was known for wearing high-waisted pants to dance and her ferocious style of footwork. She first rose to fame in the late 1920s. And her body of work over the decades includes numerous appearances in films before her early death around age 50 in 1963 (her exact date of birth is disputed, so is her age at death – also, before you ask, everything I’ve found about her sexuality suggests she was straight, but I’m no historian so…). Still her style of dance and swagger alone makes her Gender Fuck Thursday Royalty. Now, I know all about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and Gene Kelly. But after watching recordings of Carmen’s performances, truly everyone should know her name. This dance is from the 1944 musical “Follow the Boys” which also featured W.C. Fields, Orson Welles, The Andrew Sisters, Dinah Shore, Sophie Tucker and Marlene freaking Dietrich. Somehow, I’ve heard of all those stars. But Carmen? Yeah, not so much. Well, now we all know her name. And we’ll never forget it, or her furious feet.
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