Over the past 40 years, Carlota Santana has been lauded as “The Keeper of Flamenco,” was honored by the government of Spain for her “passion, excellence and dedication to the flamenco art,” and, at the age of 82, continues to bring flamenco dance to stages across the globe.
Flamenco, at its core, is “an aggregation of influences from a number of peoples and cultures, most of which had experienced hardship, discrimination, and displacement,” Santana, who is white, said in a 2020 interview.
“A lot of the songs in flamenco came from minority communities,” she explained. “The songs were about what they felt and how they responded to the discrimination.”
