Teresa Champion, handpicked by John Wayne for “The Alamo,” brought flamenco to San Antonio and teaches passionately at her dance academy.
SAN ANTONIO — Flamenco music has roots dating back to 15th century Spain. The passionate combination of dancing, guitars and castanets was brought to the new world by colonizers. But it took San Antonio’s own Teresa Champion to import the gypsy sound to Texas.
If you remember The Alamo movie with John Wayne, you probably recall the famous flamenco dance scene. That was San Antonio’s own Teresa Champion.
In 1959, she was handpicked by John Wayne for the scene, even though she wasn’t supposed to be on the movie set. Her husband, Willie “El Curro” Champion, was hired as the flamenco guitarist. Teresa tagged along and tried to stay out of the way. But she caught John Wayne’s eye.
“He looked at me and he goes straight to me and I’m thinking, i knew it. He’s going to throw me out,” says Champion. “He got very close to me, and he goes, ‘What are you doing here?’ I said I’m with my husband. He plays the guitar. He’s the flamenco guitarist. He said, ‘What do you do?’ I said, I’m a flamenco dancer. ‘He says why aren’t you over there?’, I said, because you already have the dancers.”
Teresa says Wayne yelled for one of the movie’s coordinators. “Antonia!” he went calling. Antonia came running.
‘Yes, Mr. Wayne? I want her in the movie. But Mr. Wayne, we already have all the dancers, and she didn’t audition. She doesn’t have to audition. Look at her. She looks very Spanish.”
Wayne wanted her for the tabletop dance scene. Teresa was reluctant since she’s afraid of heights. But El Curro talked her into it. Her next challenge…how to get on top of the table.
“So I’m ready to get up on the table. I’m waiting for somebody to help, because it’s high! Then John Wayne came and carried me.”
Her fear gave way to her passion for flamenco. She did the dance in one take. Overcoming obstacles has been the story of Teresa Champion’s life, much like flamenco itself.
“I think it’s a way of life,” says Champion. “You dance sad, bailes de una manera (you dance one way). Contenta bailes de otra (happy, you dance another). Y enojada, if you dance mad, you want to make holes in the pizo, in the floor.”
Flamenco flows through Teresa’s veins. Since the age of six, she studied Spanish dancing and folklorico.
Her parents scraped up enough money to send her to Mexico City for formal training. She spent two years learning folklorico. Then she heard the allure of flamenco.
“So I went to see it, the window. And I see this man singing flamenco. The guitar is playing flamenco and the dancer dancing flamenco, and I stayed there for about 15 minutes. My mother said it is time to go. But I said, i want to see this.”
She never looked back. She even traveled to Spain to master her craft, eventually bringing flamenco to San Antonio in 1954.
Again, it wasn’t without it’s challenges.
“My mother would say, where are we going to find a guitarist? There are no flamenco guitarists in San Antonio. And I told my mother, we’ll find one.”
She not only found a guitarist, she married him. Accompanied by El Curro, they became international stars.
Teresa champion could have rested on her laurels already being a star of stage and screen. But she wanted to pass on her passion to others.
So she opened up her own dance academy. Since the 1970s, Teresa has taught flamenco to several generations of dancers.
Learning the steps is one thing.
“I love dancing because Miss Teresa is one of my great teacher i have learned from,” says flamenco student Valentino Delgado. “I’ve been in recital two times because she taught me how to be brave, not to be scared.”
Living the passion is another thing.
“You got to learn how to feel the dance,” says student Mimi Stokely Leal. “If you feel the dance, you get more impact. And if you give out more emotion, your audience feels the more of the impact about your dance.”
At 86 years old, Teresa Championship has plenty of passion to pass on.
However, she knows she also needs patience, giving her students time to follow her lead.
“Sometimes I want the kids to do faces, but they don’t because they haven’t gone through it,” says Champion. “You have to go through something in your life, you know, the older you get, the more faces you do. Because it’s the feeling that you have.”
If you would like to see Teresa Champion and her youth dance company, Los Flamenquitos, perform you can catch them next Sunday, June 8.
They’ll be dancing at 8 p.m. at the Woodlawn Theater. Tickets are $12.
By the way, the Woodlawn is also where the movie “The Alamo” featuring Teresa Champion had its world premiere.