The dancer, teacher, choreographer and former director of the Spanish National Ballet, whose stage name was Victoria Eugenia and affectionately known within the profession as Maestra Betty, died this Wednesday at the age of 91. Her real name was Benita Jabato Muñoz and she was born in Madrid in 1933. Between 1993 and 1997 she co-directed the Spanish National Ballet (BNE) in a shared triumvirate with the also outstanding former dancers and teachers Aurora Pons and Nana Lorca.
Victoria Eugenia’s extensive stage and professional experience placed her in a very prominent position not only within her generation, but as a superb example of the golden age – and crystallization – of the styles of Spanish stage dance and Spanish ballet. Betty studied at the Royal School of Dramatic Art and Dance in Madrid, where she graduated with an Extraordinary End of Degree Award in 1948, and expanded her knowledge of Spanish dance and academic-classical ballet, as well as the Bailes de Palillos (commonly known as the Classical Bolero School) with the Pericet family and at the Karen Taft center in Madrid, respectively.
Taft played a fundamental role in the training of Betty and other dancers of her time, as the teacher came from the Danish school and the method of August Bournonville, providing rigor, precision, speed in execution and musical detail; all these elements would later be present in her dance and in both her teachings and her choreographies. In her last active stage, she taught methodology courses.
With Antonio, the dancer
After several years dedicated exclusively to teaching, she made her debut as a performer in the Ballet of Antonio Ruiz Soler, which she joined in 1953, remaining in its ranks for around five seasons and where Antonio immediately distinguished her with roles created for her in works that have remained and have been transmitted to current generations, such as Concert allegro, Viva Navarra o Sonatas by Father Soler, among other works where virtuoso work with slippers and sticks alternated with more earthly work linked to flamenco influences.
At this time, Victoria Eugenia had already become a prominent interpreter of the famous and very difficult Step fourwith music by Sorozábal and choreography by Antonio himself, which evoked the romantic in the most traditional Spanish dance Big Four Stepswhich Antonio knew very well in at least two versions, the one by Keith Lester and the one by Anton Dolin. Betty excelled in her role, recreating in Spanish style the romantic myth of 19th century stars such as the Danish Lucile Grahn and the Italians Fanny Cerrito and Carlotta Grisi, but with accurate turns and highlights of the Spanish school. Years later Betty contributed to refreshing and reviving this work at the National Ballet of Spain. Betty had a long relationship with the BNE at different stages, as she arrived as a principal character dancer in 1980 and, at the same time, she worked as a repetiteur and teacher, roles that she played under different artistic directors. Unforgettable was her creative seal in the role of The Nurse in the Medea by Jose Granero.
It was the former Sevillian dancer, teacher and choreographer Alberto Lorca, who had created pieces for her, who encouraged her to create choreography, conceiving her first pieces in the sixties of the last century.: Benamor (Luna), The Barber of Lavapiés (Barbieri), Gypsy passion (Ruiz de Luna), Three dances (Pomegranates) and Rondeña (Albéniz), among other works that always stand out for their musicality and for bringing out the best in each dancer. A few years later, already within the National Ballet, where she was the head teacher of Spanish dance, she created a series of delightful short works full of detail and good taste that worked very well, such as Solo (with music by Adela Mascaraque, who was a historic pianist, in 1984), Dance IX (music by Enrique Granados in a sensitive orchestration by Ernesto Halffter, 1985) and Chacona (score by José Nieto, 1990).
Already in the direction of the BNE, Betty found time to choreograph, always in her precious miniature style, devising a version of The bullfighter’s prayer (Joaquín Turina, 1994), My air (Enrique Granados, 1994) and Goyescas (Granados, 1996). All the dancers who worked with Victoria Eugenia agree on her inventiveness, delicacy and good craftsmanship that evoked the golden age of Spanish ballet. Betty never left aside the didactic part of her career, and she frequently repeated that this was the greatest duty of dance artists: to pass on their knowledge and the details of the styles. At the same time, the strong part of her character spoke of another era of Spanish dance.