Argentinita

Encarnación López Júlvez, known professionally as La Argentinita, was born on March 3, 1898, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Spanish immigrant parents. Her father operated a fabric business in Argentina, where the family experienced the deaths of two siblings during a scarlet fever epidemic. In 1901, the family relocated to the northern coast of Spain, where López Júlvez began studying Spanish regional dances. By age four she was receiving flamenco instruction from Julia Castelao, and at eight she gave her first public performance at the Teatro-Circo de San Sebastián in the Basque Country. She adopted the stage name La Argentinita in tribute to the celebrated flamenco dancer Antonia Mercé, known as La Argentina.

Recognized as a child prodigy, López Júlvez performed across Spain before establishing herself in Madrid, where she appeared at Teatro La Latina, Teatro de la Comedia, Teatro de La Princesa, Teatro Apolo, and Teatro Príncipe Alfonso. Her reputation extended to Barcelona, Portugal, Paris, and Latin America. Among her early notable engagements was the 1920 premiere of Federico García Lorca's musical play El maleficio de la mariposa, in which she performed the role of the Butterfly. Although she announced her retirement in 1926, she returned to performance as part of the artistic renewal associated with the Generation of '27, incorporating flamenco, tango, bulerías, and boleros into her work. During this period she danced to compositions by Manuel de Falla, Joaquín Turina, Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados, and Maurice Ravel, and contributed to the development of Ballet Español.

Her artistic circle included Spanish poets and intellectuals such as Rafael Alberti, García Lorca, Edgar Neville, and Ignacio Sánchez Mejías. Sánchez Mejías, a bullfighter and intellectual, became her lover, and López Júlvez undertook a second retirement to sustain their relationship before returning to the stage with his support in organizing performers for her productions. In 1931, she and García Lorca recorded five gramophone slate records accompanied by García Lorca on piano. The ten songs, which included "Los cuatro muleros," "Zorongo gitano," "Anda Jaleo," and "En el Café de Chinitas," were selected, adapted, and titled Colección de Canciones Populares Españolas by García Lorca.

With the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic, López Júlvez founded the ballet company Bailes Españoles de la Argentinita alongside her sister Pilar López Júlvez and García Lorca. The company staged several flamenco theatrical productions, including an adaptation of Falla's El amor brujo in 1933 and Las Calles de Cádiz in both 1933 and 1940. Its roster included flamenco figures Juana la Macarrona, La Malena, Fernanda Antúnez, Rafael Ortega, and Antonio de Triana, who served as her primary dancing partner until the 1940s. The death of Sánchez Mejías, who was gored in the Manzanares bullring in 1934, prompted López Júlvez to redirect her energies into work, leading her to Buenos Aires to perform at the Teatro Colón and then on an extended American tour. She achieved success in New York in 1936 before returning briefly to Spain, from which she was forced to flee ahead of the Spanish Civil War. She subsequently traveled through Morocco, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Belgium before settling in exile in New York.

Her Broadway career spanned 1930 to 1942, with credits including The International and Keep 'em Laughing. In 1943, she presented the flamenco production El Café de Chinitas at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, featuring her own choreography, texts by García Lorca, scenery by Salvador Dalí, and orchestral direction by José Iturbi. She also performed at the Washington, D.C., Watergate complex alongside her sister Pilar.

On May 28, 1945, López Júlvez gave her final performance at the Metropolitan, appearing in El Capricho Español, the orchestral work composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1887. She was hospitalized immediately following the performance and died on September 24, 1945, from an abdominal tumor, having declined surgery in order to continue dancing. Her body was repatriated to Spain in December of that year and buried in Madrid. The company of Bailes Españoles de la Argentinita was dissolved the same year. Among the posthumous honors she received was a commemorative plaque at the Metropolitan Opera House, placed alongside the medals of Alfonso X El Sabio and La Orden de Isabel la Católica in recognition of her contributions to culture. A portrait of López Júlvez painted in 1915 by Julio Romero de Torres is held at the Julio Romero de Torres Museum in Cordoba, and a Segovian exhibition organized by her family displayed seventeen original costumes worn during her most notable performances.