Fernanda de Utrera on AllMovie

As the figure most responsible for bringing the flamenco -- the Spanish national dance -- to the international community, the Sevillian dancer and stage performer Fernanda de Utrera arose from the Gypsy community as a young woman and took Spain by storm. Born in 1923 to the Pininis, a network of families centered in the Sierra de Cádiz foothills of Utrera, Spain, Fernanda Jiménez Peña had her work cut out for her from birth -- for the Peña family that produced her had almost singularly developed the main strand of flamenco. (In fact, the locals cited Fernanda's paternal grandfather in a still-popular flamenco refrain.) Before she reached the age of ten, De Utrera's preternatural ability with the dance gained such infamy that she drew spectators from a radius of hundreds of miles. Thanks to Antonio Mairena, De Utrera began performing in the tablao nightclubs as a young girl (as half of an act that also included her sister, Bernarda). The siblings maintained their act, but didn't reach an international audience until 1952, with their joint appearances as dancers in Edgar Neville's documentary Duende y Misterio del Flamenco.

Fernanda retained a strong emotional attachment to the Utrera region throughout her life, and continued to perform on-stage over the years, but her on-camera appearances were rare indeed. She graced the cast of Mario Camus' 1987 House of Bernarda Alba (from a play by Lorca) and, thanks to dance aficionado Carlos Saura (Carmen, Tango), performed in that director's stunning 1995 documentary Flamenco, which -- per its title -- brings together a who's who of the flamenco community for a pageant of flamenco dancing. Befitting De Utrera's origins, Saura filmed the performances at an abandoned Sevillian train station.

De Utrera died at the age of 83, of undisclosed causes, on August 24, 2006.