Historical Marker
Clarita Garcia de Aranda Allison / Flamenco
Albuquerque, Bernalillo County · New Mexico
The degrees the panel credits to the university began with Clarita's own family. Born in Albuquerque in 1921 and crowned Fiesta Queen in 1941, she ran her school from about 1960, at Edith and Candelaria, with up to forty students. Her daughter Eva Enciñias began teaching a flamenco class at the University of New Mexico in 1976, founded the National Institute of Flamenco in 1982, and built undergraduate and graduate concentrations in flamenco within the dance degrees. Her grandchildren Marisol and Joaquín Encinias now run the institute and its festival.
What the plaque says
Official Scenic Historic Marker Clarita Garcia de Aranda Allison 1921-1989 Among the most renown teachers and performers of flamenco in the state, Clarita grew up in a musical family and was heavily influenced by her mother and her brother Antonio, a professional flamenco dancer. After serving as a civilian Spanish-language interpreter in World War II, Clarita opened a dance school in Albuquerque, Clarita's School of Dance, leading her students in performance around the state as the Baile Flamenco. Her love for the flamenco tradition brought greater awareness and appreciation to this centuries-old art form and its importance in the cultural history of the Southwest. Official Scenic Historic Marker Flamenco "The Dance of Passion" Flamenco is a dance of fiery passion and great skill, believed to have originated in Andalucia, Spain, in the fifteenth century and to have taken root in New Mexico in part due to the state's historic and cultural ties to Spain. The flamenco tradition was taught and performed in the early twentieth century in family and community gatherings and still enjoyed throughout the state in public celebrations of Hispanic heritage. The University of New Mexico is the first and only institute of higher education in the world to offer degrees in flamenco. See other side
Where it stands
35.08374, -106.62218 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Petroglyph National Monument — 8.0 miSome 24,000 images pecked into the dark basalt of Albuquerque's West Mesa, protected in 1990 and then crossed by a city boulevard.