As a young girl, Cristina Hoyos expressed doubts to her father about her desire to become a dancer.  “Don’t worry,” he tenderly said to her, “it’s the art that matters, the passion.  You will be the most wonderful dancer in the world.”  With those words still echoing in her memory, she has become a living legend in the world of flamenco and has never looked back to those days of uncertainty -- even when flamenco was repressed during the last Spanish dictatorship. 

Cristina Hoyos was born in the city of Sevilla, a city in the Andalusian region of southern Spain, where flamenco first appeared, and started dancing at the age of 12.  At age 16, fully committed to flamenco, she added choreography to her work, and several years later she made her international debut at the Spanish Pavilion at the World’s Fair in New York. 

Hoyos achieved a major career milestone when she became the on-stage partner of the  legendary Antonio Gades, who together performed Federico Garcia Lorca’s Bodas de Sangre, which was later filmed by the famed Spanish director, Carlos Saura.  In subsequent years the trio filmed El Amor Brujo and Carmen.  All three films have become the cinematic icons of flamenco and two of them will be part of the Festival’s film series at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. 

The Ballet Cristina Hoyos was founded in 1989 and the company was soon in high demand in both Spain and in international venues.  Hoyos has received high honors and acclaim throughout the world, including: the National Prize for Dancing from the Spanish Ministry of Culture; the Gold Medal Award for Dance from the Junta de Andalucia; named the Andalusian Women of 1992; in London, won the 1995 Lawrence Olivier Award for Best Production in Dance; and the Fine Arts and Letters Award by the French government.  As an additional accolade, Hoyos choreographed and performed a production of Carmen, directed by Rubin Mehta, at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.

Each year Cristina Hoyos’ stage oeuvre develops a greater depth, a new construction, without losing its basic flamenco integrity.  “Cada cosa a su tiempo,”(Everything in its time) has been her guiding principle and she steadfastly considers guitar, palmas, song, dance, and an unflinching adherence to its Andalusian roots, as the essence of flamenco.  “Flamenco is buleriás, soleá, seguiriyas and tarantos,” she says.  “You can’t get too far from the basics and still have flamenco.  And yet, one must move along with the times, keeping in tempo with the present, without losing your roots.” -- thus the name of her latest production, A Tiempo y a Compás (In Time with the Times).

                                                                                                            Alberto Pizano        
 

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