Tórtola Valencia y la renovación de la danza en España

The figure of Tórtola Valencia is presented as an innovative personality in the world of international dance whose legacy, even though she has passed unnotieed, can be understood as a contribution to modern dance having obtained her greatest success in the Hispanic world. Tórtola Valencia dind’t intend to reshape dance, as was the intention of lsadora Duncan. lnstead of this, she focused on developing a dance stemming from her personal feelings, ideas, and spiritual experiences of Antiquity. Her repertoire of a varied nature encompasses Spanish dance, the personal interpretation of the classical style, and the clever rebuilding of historical dance. In the first case, she contributes to popularizing Spanish style along the lines of theatrical dance, similar to that of Antonia Mercé. Artistically present is the concept of the «Ornamental Dance>> of the turn of the century. But she went even further in trying to make universal the vital experience of her dances through that which she calleed the «Natural Style>>, and searched in history for a starting force to work at the same time as the pretext of quality for her own creations. In this sense, she deeply shares characteristics with New Dance, of German origin developed during the first third of the twentieth century. She does so just as much in her own creative way as in her being motivated by the fact that there might not be a more unified style or particular vocabulary of steps and movements to pass on to future generations.