Remembering Enrique Morente

[Deirdre Towers]

I am so upset that the great flamenco artist Enrique Morente Cotelo just died, Monday, December 13, only 12 days shy of his birthday.

 

What a gift he had. He could make your guts burn with only a few notes. And he experimented with so many forms, always excelling.

 

Why do so many of the great & talented always seem to die young? Is it because someone upstairs says - "OK. You've done all you possibly can to remind the rest of them that the mysterious forces of nature are always there, available to be tapped."

 

Born on Christmas Day 1942 in Granada, Spain, Enrique Morente began his career in Spain in the mid-1960s, and performed at the Spanish Pavilion of the 1964 World’s Fair in New York and again in NY in recent years at BAM and Lincoln Center. Mr. Morente’s survivors include his wife, Aurora Carbonell, a dancer; and three children, one of whom, Estrella Morente, who is my favorite performer in Carlos Saura's latest film FLAMENCO FLAMENCO that Dance on Camera Festival will show on January 29, 2011.

 

“I like doing what comes from inside,” Enrique Morente told The Boston Globe in 2003. “If that means I’m innovating, it’s pure coincidence.”