Helba Huara
Helba Huara | |
---|---|
![]() Helba Huara, by Vargas Brothers Art Studio, 1924 | |
Born | Helba Muñoz Huara 1900 Cusco, Peru |
Died | 1986 Paris, France |
Occupation(s) | dancer, model |
Years active | 1909–1936 |
Helba Huara (1900–1986) was a modern dancer from Peru. Her exotic appearance and unique dance style, which incorporated European and Native American influences, created a sensation in the late 1920s. Moving from Peru to the United States, she became a star on Broadway in the 1927 production of A Night in Spain. Later, she moved to Paris and became involved in the artistic and intellectual café society. She was renowned for her original and innovative costumes and dance style and worked as a photographer's model.
Early life
[edit]Helba Muñoz Huara was born in 1900 in Cusco, Peru, to a Spanish medical doctor named Muñoz. While in Brazil, Muñoz traveled from Spain, met his future wife, and immigrated to Peru. While she was still a child, the family immigrated to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The family was impoverished, and from around nine, Huara danced to earn money.[1][2] Beginning her career with a Russian dance troupe, Huara quickly took the stage name Helba Huara and dropped the use of Muñoz. Dancing with extreme passion, with a tragic air and intense energy, she soon developed a unique style.[1] Huara married at age fourteen and had a daughter, Elsa Henríquez, who would later become an illustrator. Huara became well known, performing in Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru. [2] She was photographed by the noted Vargas Brothers, Carlos and Miguel, in 1924. Their images of her were not erotic photographs but rather allowed her to act out the persona she projected.[3] She met Gonzalo More, a Peruvian journalist who came to interview for his brother's paper after seeing her dance in Lima.[4] Soon, she and her daughter fled the unhappy family life with Huara's husband, going with More to Havana before going to the United States. [2]
Career abroad
[edit]Arriving in the U.S., Huara was hired for the prestigious Ziegfeld Follies and billed as a captivating Spanish or Peruvian dancer,[2]. However, according to Variety her early performances were under another name.[5] She also appeared in shows at the Guild and Shubert Theaters. In 1927, she appeared on Broadway in A Night in Spain[6] and though billed as part of the chorus, almost immediately was being singled out for her performances, with her "Dance of Fate" and "Dance of the Snakes".[7][8] Quickly, the posters for the show were revised to show her as one of the stars.[9] When the show closed on Broadway, it made a nationwide tour throughout 1928, with Huara appearing successfully in such venues as Abilene, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, and San Francisco, among others.[10][11][12] Wildly inventive biographies of Huara's origins appeared in the press, adding to her allure.[13][14]
Huara's dances were described as a fusion of Peruvian folklore and Spanish techniques, using castagnets and sinuous, snake-like movements, proving a technical skill that was hypnotizing and bewitching.[15] Performed to modern music composed by artists like Arthur Honegger and Vincent d'Indy, she balanced her wild "Incan" abandon with the bohemian music and style of the period.[16] Huara designed her costumes and even took films of her movements in slow motion to patent her dance moves.[17] In 1930, she played in the musical Nina Rose, at the Majestic Theatre.[18] The following year, she was the subject of photographs entered in the Rochester International Salon of Photography by Dr. Max Thorek.[19] Suffering from a nervous disorder and increasing deafness, Huara and More left the United States for Paris.[2]
In 1931, Huara, More and Henríquez arrived in Paris, where Huara became known as "the dancing Inca".[20][21][6] She performed at several of the soirées hosted by Désirée Lieven, an expatriate from Lithuania who often was referred to as a princess and became the center of leftist intelligentsia activities in Paris.[20][22][23] Huara's elaborate costumes and dancing style combined savagery and soul. More served as Huara’s accompanist, and the two caught Anaïs Nin’s attention when she saw Huara perform the "Dance of the Woman without Arms" in the early 1930s at the Théâtre de la Gaîeté. In 1933, Huara and More toured Germany to much acclaim, [6] afterward, continuing to perform in Paris through 1935.[24] In 1936, Huara and More attended a party where they met Nin for the first time. By that time, Huara's deafness and illness had impacted her ability to continue dancing. She and More lived in a small basement apartment shared with other revolutionary figures who opposed the conservatives in the Spanish Civil War.[25] In her diaries, Nin wrote that she was the benefactress of the couple, though in actuality, Nin was having an affair with More. [2] She rented a houseboat on the Seine to facilitate her rendezvous with More.[26] In her journals, Nin referred to More as "Rango" and Huara as "Zara"[21] disparaging Huara as a neurotic, dependent on her husband's care. In actuality, More was a person with alcohol use disorder who preferred socializing to work.[27]
In March 1940, Huara and More fled France and arrived in New York City.[28] During World War II, Nin set More up with a printing press in the United States. Still, the business failed due to his mismanagement.[2] Huara ran a dance studio in New York, where she taught students like the musicologist Rosa Alarco.[29] At the end of the war, the couple returned to Paris,[2] where Huara remained a fixture among the avant-garde circles, before having to withdraw from activities due to illness and loss of her sight. [2][30]
Death and legacy
[edit]Huara died in Paris in 1986.[2] Huara was the central character in a trilogy of novels by Carlos Calderón Fajardo, La noche humana which focus on the Peruvian expatriate community of Paris who were political leftists.[31][22] In 2017, Revista Vuelapluma (volume 10), a journal from the Universidad de Ciencias y Humanidades of Los Olivos published a chronicle of Huara's life by the journalist Pablo Paredes.[32]
References
[edit]Citations
[edit]- ^ a b de Zarraüa 1927, p. 18.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Niño de Guzmán 2013, p. 3.
- ^ Castro 2006.
- ^ Nin 1995, p. 420.
- ^ Variety 1927, p. 49.
- ^ a b c Nin 1995, p. 421.
- ^ The Brooklyn Daily Eagle & 4 May 1927, p. 36.
- ^ The Berkeley Daily Gazette 1928, p. 3.
- ^ de Zárraga 1927, pp. 740, 770.
- ^ The Abilene Reporter-News & 13 May 1928, p. 7.
- ^ The Daily Democrat 1928.
- ^ Soans 1928, p. 45.
- ^ The Abilene Reporter-News & 27 May 1928, p. 13.
- ^ Bald 1987, p. 82.
- ^ Conijn 1934, pp. 429–430.
- ^ Conijn 1934, p. 430.
- ^ The Brooklyn Daily Eagle & 15 July 1927, p. 24.
- ^ The Brooklyn Daily Eagle 1930, p. 31.
- ^ The Syracuse Herald 1931, p. 110.
- ^ a b Bald 1987, pp. 47, 81–82.
- ^ a b Malexis 2011, p. 7.
- ^ a b Ayala 2015.
- ^ Sáez More 2015.
- ^ The Oakland Tribune 1935, p. 68.
- ^ Duxler 2002, p. 68.
- ^ Duxler 2002, p. 69.
- ^ Duxler 2002, pp. 68–70.
- ^ Duxler 2002, p. 75.
- ^ Respaldiza Rojas 2014.
- ^ DeMille 1965, p. 167.
- ^ Libros Peruanos 2008.
- ^ Universidad de Ciencias y Humanidades 2017.
Bibliography
[edit]- Ayala, José Luis (3 May 2015). "Última entrevista a Carlos Calderón Fajardo" [Last interview with Carlos Calderón Fajardo] (in Spanish). Puno, Peru: Diario Los Andes. Archived from the original on 25 July 2015. Retrieved 7 July 2017.
- Bald, Wambly (1987). Franklin V., Benjamin (ed.). On the Left Bank, 1929–1933. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. ISBN 0-8214-0852-6.
- Castro, Fernando (30 November 2006). "The Vargas Brothers of Arequipa". Houston Center For Photography Online. Houston, Texas: Houston Center For Photography. Archived from the original on 29 June 2016. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
- Conijn, Cornelius (July–December 1934). "De Inca-Danseres Helba Huara" [The Inca Dancer Helba Huara]. Elsevier Weekblad (in Dutch) (2). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: ONE Business: 428–430. ISSN 0020-0190. Archived from the original on 6 July 2017. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
- DeMille, Agnes (1965). The Book of the Dance. New York, New York: Golden Press. OCLC 427221448.
- Duxler, Margot Beth (2002). Seduction: a portrait of Anaïs Nin. Boulder, Colorado: EdgeWork Books. ISBN 978-1-931-22302-7.
- Malexis, Sophie (26 November 2011). "Emile Savitry (1903-1967), un photographe de Montparna sse" [Emile Savitry (1903–1967), a photographer from Montparnasse] (PDF). Le MASC (in French). Poitiers, France: Musée de l’Abbaye Sainte-Croix. pp. 5–9. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 April 2016. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
- Nin, Anaïs (1995). Stuhlmann, Gunther (biographical notes and annotations); Pole, Rupert (preface) (eds.). Fire: the unexpurgated diary of Anaïs Nin, 1934–1937 (1st unabridged ed.). New York, New York: Harcourt Brace. ISBN 0-15-100088-3.
- Niño de Guzmán, Guillermo (September 2013). "Gonzalo More, un peruano en la vida de Anaïs Nin" [Gonzalo More, a Peruvian in the life of Anaïs Nin]. Lundero (in Spanish) (417). Chiclayo, Peru: La Industria de Chiclayo: 2–3. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
- Respaldiza Rojas, José (10 August 2014). "Rosa Alarco...Una Rosa Musical" [Rosa Alarco...A rose-colored musical] (in Spanish). Lima, Peru: La Mula. Archived from the original on 6 July 2017. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
- Sáez More, Daniel (8 March 2015). "Mujer Universal: Désirée Lieven, luchadora antifascista" [Désirée Lieven, Anti-fascist fighter] (in Spanish). Spain: Eco Republicano. Archived from the original on 20 July 2015. Retrieved 7 July 2017.
- de Zárraga, Miguel (September 1927). "La Danzarina Tragica" [The Tragic Dancer]. Cine-Mundial (in Spanish). New York, New York: Chalmers Publishing Company: 740, 770. Retrieved 7 July 2017.
- de Zarraüa, Miguel (30 October 1927). "Helba Muñoz Huara, la Celebrada Artista Hispanoperuana" [Helba Muñoz Huara, the Celebrated Hispanic Peruvian Artist]. ABC España (in Spanish). Madrid, Spain. p. 18. Archived from the original on 6 July 2017. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
- "En la penumbra del tiempo: Carlos Calderón Fajardo, escritor" [In the twilight of time: Carlos Calderón Fajardo, writer]. librosperuanos.com (in Spanish). Lima, Peru: Centro Cultural Libros Peruanos. 22 September 2008. Archived from the original on 16 March 2016. Retrieved 7 July 2017.
- "A Night in Spain". Variety. LXXXVII (4). New York City, New York: Variety, Inc.: 49–50 11 May 1927. ISSN 0042-2738. Retrieved 7 July 2017.
- "Revista Vuelapluma: UCH presenta décima edición" [Journal Vuelapluma: UCH presents 10th edition]. UCH Peru (in Spanish). Los Olivos, Peru: Universidad de Ciencias y Humanidades. 4 May 2017. Archived from the original on 7 July 2017. Retrieved 7 July 2017.