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Carmencita (I)
1868-1910 | 
United States of America
Self
Carmencita can be seen performing one of her dance acts from 1890 in Carmencita (1894). With that film she scored a few firsts in film history. This was the first time a woman appeared in a motion picture made in USA, and arguably the first time a film featuring a female performance was distributed commercially. Also, she is one of the first contemporary celebrities to appear in front of the kinetoscope at Edison Studios, and the first to perform a dance routine on film.
What is more important about the film is that this is a rare recording of the talent that was Carmencita. The dancer, specialising in Spanish gypsy choreography, but born in Pennsylvania, was one of the first performers to popularise flamenco across the United States. Early reviews refer to her dancing as "revelatory, sensational and devastating". In her book Antonia Mercé - "La Argentina": Flamenco and the Spanish Avant Garde, Ninotchka Devorah Bennahum recalls another contemporary critic that described her as an "extraordinary personality that seizes the beholder and leaves him mystified with the power of [her movement’s] effect. She is the incarnate harmony of form and motion. She is art personified".
Lacking music and an adequate length, Dickson’s Carmencita can only give us a glimpse of the artist that attracted such exemplary criticism. The glamorous paintings by Sergent, displayed at Musée d'Orsay in Paris, show how powerful a performer Carmencita was, full of flamboyancy and with a striking stage presence. The film-maker at Edison Manufacturing Co. must have known this before the recording of the scene with her, and it is very likely that it is particularly her presence that prompted them to offer an invitation to the studio. In a desire to monetise on the invention of the kinetoscope, the choice of actors such as Carmencita was a valuable investment, as the public was sure to pay for a chance to see that great dancer in action.
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Feb 23, 2010 | Share Article 