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______________________________
TEO MORCA
NEA
NATIONAL HERITAGE AWARD NOMINATION
Tamara Saj has nominated Teo Morca for the NEA
National Heritage Award Fellowship. This is a very prestigious
fellowship that aims to honor and preserve our nation's diverse cultural
heritage by honoring artists who have given their lives to an art form.
The National Endowment for the Arts annually awards one-time-only NEA National
Heritage Fellowships to master folk and traditional artists. These fellowships
recognize lifetime achievement, artistic excellence, and contributions to our
nation's traditional arts heritage. Click on the image below or the title above
to see the Awards Nomination Package.
Excerpt from Awards Package
STATEMENT OF ACHIEVEMENTS:
The first time I saw
Teo Morca
was in a book on the history of flamenco over the past century. The tautness of
his posture betrayed an incredible discipline that built his body over years of
hard work and repetition of a singular art form.
He was standing on his toes, back arched, while holding a hat over his
head, his figure lithe and ethereal, the expression on his face serene yet
austere. It gave me a rush to see someone so young and strong doing the
art form that I do, during an epoch before my time.
Then, my mentor at the time, La
Miguelita
, founder of the American Flamenco Theater, told me that Morca was still out
there teaching and working, and that I should get in touch with him.
I was terrified, but I finally got up the nerve to email him.
The response I received was the opposite of what I feared:
he was approachable, warm, funny, and he put me immediately at my ease.
He was down to earth, friendly, even self-deprecating.
After awhile, our correspondence took on a familiar and comfortable air,
and I applied for and won a grant from the Fayetteville Arts Council to go study
with him. I traveled to
Costa Rica
and did a private workshop with him. It
was the beginning of what I feel is a turning point in my growth as a flamenco
artist.
Although his credentials and background speak for
themselves, the story of
Teo Morca
and Carmen Amaya, considered by many to be one of the best flamenco
dancers who ever lived, says it all. Amaya was sitting at the front table,
with a large party, watching him perform. He gave it everything he had:
the knowledge of Amaya’s presence lent him a fluidity and an energy that fired
one of his most powerful performances. When he was done, she handed him
her personal glass of champagne, with a huge smile.
Morca has created a method of teaching flamenco that
instructs the actual technique of the dance. In 1974,
Teo Morca
offered the very first All Flamenco Workshop Festival in the
United States
. He developed his own style of training that pulls out the inner energy
of the student, which he counterpoints with the elegance and unique torso of the
Spanish classical bolero school. Students “become the dance," learning
how to say and feel the dance, imparting the essential inner spirit or soul--
revealing the "emotion in motion" between artist and audience.
As I compile the materials for
this package, I get the sense of being in a temple.
The body of work reflects the lifetime of an artist whose career
blossomed over the span of fifty years. Morca has left an indelible mark on the
art of flamenco in the world; for he has transformed the face of flamenco by
showing that it can be interpreted and performed by people of all ages,
backgrounds, and nationalities. And
he keeps doing it. He is still out
there teaching workshops, still out there mentoring, still passing on the art
form.
Morca offered the very first all-flamenco workshop festival in the
United States
in 1974. His teaching method was
introduced during the early Jacob’s Pillow dance festivals.
Ted Shawn, founder and director of Jacob’s Pillow, called him a
“superb artist and excellent teacher.” Viola
Swisher of Dance Magazine described
his work as “brilliantly danced, [with] intense drama...offered a deeply
moving theatre experience.” He is
no stranger to the National Endowment for the Arts, having served on the
advisory panel and having been recognized as a dance fellowship recipient in
1979.
To this day, what Teo has done for the flamenco diaspora and for the heart
and spirit of flamenco has been to show that there is an actual method to
communicate and pass on the art of flamenco, a storytelling art that until
recently has been performed and understood by gypsies.
Teo is one of the primary reasons that the art of flamenco actually has a
diaspora. He is still living on
today, still dancing, still vibrant, still touching people’s lives by
empowering them with the understanding of the art form.
Yet, if you are from an older generation and remember the handsome and
mysterious flamenco dancer on the Johnny Mathis Show who broke the Guinness
World Record for the fastest footwork, that is him.
I understand this award is resubmitted for the next ten years, but please
consider awarding the NEA National Heritage Fellowship to Teo this year. Teo
is 74 years old and deserves to see the fruits of his labor and to see that
people appreciate -- that The World appreciates -- what he has given of his life
over the past half century. He has
unceasingly given himself and his Life to the art of flamenco...yet his love of
the art form over his life has only been exceeded by his human generosity.
TAMARA SAJ,
Founder and Artistic Director,
The
Cape
Fear
Arte Flamenco,
Nominator
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