At a very young age she moved to Spain where she spent her childhood traveling through the flamenco world of Southern Spain; from the caves of Sacromonte, Granada to the gypsy enclave of Moron de la Frontera, and on to Sevilla. La Tania began her professional career at age seventeen dancing and touring with various companies in Spain. From 1981 to 1992 she danced with Compania Juan Quintero, Balle
t Raul performing in Mallorca, Greece and Ibiza and performed at Esfoguero in Mallorca under the guidance of Alberto Lorca. From there she moved on to dance as a soloist in the major Tablaos of Madrid, such as Canasteros, La Venta del Gato, the prestigious Corral de la Moreria where she performed for many years and eventually became the star dancer. She performed as a featured dancer at Zambra and Casapatas as well. As she continued her studies with various masters of flamenco dance like, Merche Esmeralda, Cristobal Reyes, La Tati, and most notably Ciro, whom she considers her greatest influence; she began touring as a soloist with some of Spain's most renowned Flamenco companies. Traveling with Paco Peña, Mario Maya, Los Flamenco Somos Asi and others La Tania danced throughout Europe, North Africa, Japan, and Mexico performing in such venues as El Teatro Lope de Vega, Spain; Teatro Bellas Artes, Mexico City; Teatro Juarez in the Cervantino Festival, Mexico; Theater Carre, Amsterdam; Theater Luxor, Rotterdam; Yubin Chonkin Hall, Tokio; Teatro Albeniz, Madrid and Teatro Alcazar, Madrid to name a few. She has danced in major festivals including La Bienal de Sevilla, Spain; Festival Veranos de la Villa, Madrid; Festival Flamenco de Linares,Spain and the RomaEuropa Festival in Rome, Italy. In 1991 La Tania started her own company in Madrid and in 1993 performed in California where she decided to relocate. From 1993 to 2003 La Tania toured extensively with her company presenting many programs and bringing renowned artists from Spain such as Rafael Campallo, Belen Maya, Jose Anillo, Andres Marin, Juan Antonio Suarez “Cano”, Enrique el Extremeno, and Jose Luis Rodriguez. Some of the venues included in the tours were; Grand Performances, Los Angeles; Festival Flamenco Alburquerque, NM; Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Idaho; San Jose Flamenco Society, San Jose, CA; College of the Siskiyous, Weed, CA; The Fountain Theater, Los Angeles; Cabrillo College, Watsonville, CA; The Bay Area Dance Series, Oakland CA; California Center for the Arts, Escondido, CA; Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA; UC Santa Barbara, CA; California State University, Laxson Theater, Chico, CA; California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA; Hult Center for the Arts, Eugene, Oregon; Dance Umbrella, Boston, MA; Irvine Barclay Theater, CA; Center Arts Cal State, Humbolt, CA; The Joyce Theater, New York; University of South Oregon, Medford OR; South West Dance, Orpheum Theater, Phoenix Az; El Flamenco, Tokio, Japan; Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; Flamenco Festival, Monterrey, Mexico; University of Kansas, Manhattan, KS; Dance Umbrella, Austin, TX; Cal Poly, Center for the Arts, CA; Aspen Dance Festival, Aspen, CO; Telluride Society for the Performing Arts, CO; Kahilu Theater, Hawaii; Maui Arts and Cultural Arts Center, Kahului, HI; Festival Flamenco Santa Barbara, CA; Ethnic Dance Festival, San Francisco, CA. For her work she has been awarded the Choreographers Fellowship from both the California Arts Council in 1995 and the National Endowment for the Arts in 1995 and 1996. Also in 1996 La Tania received the Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Artistic Excellence in the category of Individual Performance. The following year the Arts Achievement Award for Contemporary Dance from San Francisco Focus was presented to La Tania. La Tania has been awarded numerous fellowships and grants such as the, Creation and Presentation Grant from the National Endowments for the Arts, Meet the Composer, James Irvine Fellowships in Dance, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts in the Heritage and Preservation Category for her presentations of Abrazo in 1997 which was presented and co-commissioned by the Irvine Barclay Theater in Orange County and “Passage of the Muse” which premiered in 1999 at the Novellus Theatre at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. La Tania has also collaborated on special projects as dancer and choreographer. In 1994 she performed as a featured guest dancer with Carlota Santana Flamenco Vivo Company in New York. In 1997 she collaborated with Theater of Yugen on Blood Wine Blood Wedding a Kabuki/Flamenco fusion performance. The same year the Flamenco Society of San Jose commissioned La Tania to dance and choreograph with the musical group Willie & Lobo. In 2002 she was a guest dancer and collaborator with Alonzo Kings Lines Ballet at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. As a guest featured dancer and choreographer La Tania was invited to collaborate with Maria Benitez Teatro Flamenco in Santa Fe, NM in 2004 and 2005. In 2006 La Tania was part of Adrian Arias Illusion 5, a multidisciplinary project at the De Young Museum in San Francisco CA and in 2007 La Tania performed with Rupa & The April Fishes at the Independent in San Francisco. La Tania has been recognized worldwide as a dancer, choreographer and master teacher. She has received rave reviews from The Japan Times, El Pais, Spain; Los Angeles Times, New York Times, San Francisco Examiner and N.R.C. Handelsblad, Holand. La Tania is currently based in Oakland CA where she has founded La Tania Baile Flamenco Company and School. She is very active in the San Francisco Community imparting her knowledge and creating many events to enrichen the Bay Area Cultural Landscape. She is founder of Fiesta Flamenca (now Mission Flamenca) an ongoing monthly flamenco event in the Mission district. As part of the teaching program La Tania has presented 8 years of, Punta y Tacon, a yearly student showcase at the Mission Cultural Center Latino Arts and has presented many student choreographies as part of City Dance School at the Palace of Fine Arts designed to give performance experience to her students. Her latest full evening premiere was Despertar es un Color presented by the Azahar Dance Foundation and Ukiah Community Concert Association on April 21,22, 2012 in San Francisco and Ukiah CA. This work was nominated by the Isadora Duncan awards for Outstanding Achievement in Performance Company 2011-2012. La Tania's interest in colaborations continues to be of great interest and in February 2013 she choreographed for Opera Parallel in the renowned opera of Ainadamar. On July 7th, 2017 La Tania performed with the Ethnic Dance Festival at the War Memorial Opera House.
2016-2017 La Tania was hored with a Sustained Achiement Award from the Isadora Duncan Dance awards for her mastery and fostering of flamenco in the Bay Area as a teacher, choreographer, and performer for the past 24 years
La Tania has recently received the Creative Work Fund grant in colaboration with Presidio Theatre to create an immersive, multimedia experience that explores displacement and cultural survival in July of 2023
Currently La Tania is in Sevilla, Spain developing a new work Solaz to premiere at Presidio Theatre in San Francisco July, 21, 22, 23, 2023
PRESS QUOTES
“La Tania herself is a paradox…an Old World flamenco dancer with New World openness.”
Gilles Kennedy, The Japan Times
“Cortès and La Tania represent the new face of flamenco: both seeking new expressions, both true to their huge inheritance.”
Gilles Kennedy, The Japan Times
“Tania fue la que mejor se desenvolvió en el escenario, cuajando en la suguiriya momentos de gran belleza formal.”
(“Tania was the best to perform on the stage, bringing together in the siguiriya moments of great and serious beauty.”)
Joaquin Albaicin, ABC Madrid
"LaTania stirred the audience to roars of approval..." Jennifer Dunning, New York Times
"Perfect technical performance and feeling for rhythm... Beautiful hands, lyrical perfection that is very demanding of the female flamenco dancer." Aad Hizer, NRC Handelsblad, Holland
"This master of flamenco is lit from within, and even her smallest gestures the flick of a wrist, the slight roll of her head – are thrilling to watch. She appears in total command of her material, creating tension with enraptured pauses and telling a story with stillness as well as with her gorgeously executed flourishes of movement." Rachel Levin, ExploreDance.com
"La Tania is the genuine article, an artist who combines exceptional physical allure, immense authority and the gift for the spontaneous gesture that distinguishes the finest flamenco specialists." Allan Ulrich, San Francisco Examiner
"Tania, una joven bailaora de hermosa estampa, que en las siguiriyas y las cantiñas demostró hallarse preparada para hacer baile de contenido hondo." ("Tania, a young dancer of beautiful appearance, demonstrated in the siguiriyas and cantiñas that she is prepared to perform dance of deep content." )
Angel Alvarez Caballero, El Pais, Madrid
"La Tania's combination of restraint and release are capable of unleashing the extraordinary...clean, furious, incessant...La Tania made grace and beauty the defining features..." David Gere, Los Angeles Times
“La Tania brings an unusually sweet voluptuousness to flamenco.”
Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times
“La Tania is an articulate, intelligent master at what she does…her lyricism is her great gift.”
Gilles Kennedy, The Japan Times
"...Iridescent...La Tania is a magnetic figure of many moods." Paul Hertelendy, Mercury News
“With star performer La Tania the inward was expressed in a pure and classical style: undulations, marvelously ornate hands, smoldering looks and sudden outbursts. Her dances flowed seamlessly.”
Margaret Putnam, The Dallas Morning News
"But it is Alas al Viento (Wings to the Wind) that is unforgettable. The lights come up on La Tania dressed in white, seated in profile on a chair. She doesn’t even need to move, she already emanates an expectant air that instantly commands your attention. Slowly she begins to move one arm, then the other. Like an undulating cobra she hypnotises you into submission. She unwinds her shawl and as she turns it wafts around her, then she is twirling it like a lariat, fringe flying and just maybe she will take off into the air. Her radiant face changes expression as she discovers new ways to play with the shapes the shawl can make, as well as the possibilities of her train. Even the elegance with which she scoops it up to better show her footwork is exquisite." Aimee Tsao, Dancetabs.com
"A relatively recent phenomenon is dancers and companies who rethink their heritage and reframe it into the kind of individual expression that Western art encourages... Another is La Tania Baile Flamenco, whose Tierra translated the quintessential male farruca into a women's dance. The trio became a striking expression of female power — rigorous and utterly convincing." San Francisco Bay Guardian
"Every step from the flamenco dancer [La Tania], in addition to being an incredible display of athleticism and coordination, is flush -- the tonation is constant like only the best marching snare or drumset players are capable of. The audience watches in stunned silence... From the second that last tap hits and final poses are taken, the place erupts. If everyone wasn't already standing, they are now." Nathan Mattise, SF Weekly
"Onstage, Tania seems larger than life.... A powerful command suffuses her dancing..." Mary Ellen Hunt, San Francisco Chronicle
