Carola Goya

Carola Goya Vittucci (April 5, 1906 – May 13, 1994), born Carol Weller in New York City, was an American dancer, choreographer, and teacher who devoted her career to the study and performance of Spanish dance. She is regarded as the first solo castanets performer. Upon entering the professional dance world, she adopted a Spanish stage name, which she later made her legal name.

Goya was the daughter of Samuel MacLeary Weller, an actors' agent and theatrical publicist from Texas who had ridden with Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders, and Hortense Carroll Kellogg Weller, also known as Hortense d'Arblay. Her sister, Beatrice Burford, worked professionally as a harpist and served as Goya's accompanist during tours of the United States and Canada in the 1930s. Goya received her dance training at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School under Michel Fokine and subsequently studied in Seville, Spain, with Manuel de Castillo Otero.

Her performing career encompassed work with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and appearances with numerous symphony orchestras, including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Kansas City Philharmonic. In 1936 she danced at the White House, and later that same year she and her father were stranded in Granada during what she described as the maelstrom of the Spanish insurrection. In 1953 she appeared on Broadway with the José Greco Dance Company. The following year, 1954, she formed a dance partnership with American ethnic dancer Matteo Vittucci, with whom she co-founded the Indo-American Dance Company, an ensemble that also performed under the names Foundation for Ethnic Dance and the Matteo Ethno-American Dance Theater.

Beyond performing, Goya held faculty positions at Connecticut College, Jacob's Pillow, and the High School of Performing Arts in New York. She authored the article "The Truth About Spanish Dancing" in 1933 and co-wrote The Language of Spanish Dance with Vittucci in 1990. Goya and Vittucci married in 1974. She died on May 13, 1994, in New York City at the age of 88.