Bringing Carmen Back to Spain: Antonio Gades’s Flamenco Dance in Carlos Saura’s Choreofilm

Carmen was published as a novella in 1845 by Prosper Mérimée and in 1875 the composer Georges Bizet transformed it into what would become a universally known opera. It is a French myth of a Spanish Gypsy whose sensual beauty leads men to perdition. As such it makes use of recurring elements of Spanish culture which are often reduced to stereotypical images. The 1983 film directed by Carlos Saura, with choreography by Antonio Gades, questions the cliché associated with the figure of Carmen by focussing on two principal issues: the story’s multi-linear structure and Gades’s flamenco dance. The structure is characterised by a story within a story: a choreographer who is looking for a dancer to perform Carmen falls in love with the performer of his choice, thus following the storyline he is supposed to represent in his choreography. Gades’s flamenco dance is revealed as a work in progress, reconnecting the Carmen myth with its roots and, at the same time, deconstructing it from within. In this paper I shall analyse Antonio Gades’s flamenco dance in Saura’s Carmen in the light of current postcolonial perspectives. As Ermanna Carmen Mandelli has observed, Gades’s style was inspired by the poor people of his childhood background and in contrast with the españolada (a performance which exaggerates the Spanish character) promoted by the Francoist regime. The analysis will be concluded with a close reading of the tabacalera scene which exemplifies Gades’s style and his vision of Carmen.