The American dancer, choreographer and dance teacher living in Spain Arnold Taraborrelli (Philadelphia, 1931) died this Sunday at the age of 92 at the Jiménez Díaz Foundation in Madrid, as sources close to the family have informed the Efe agency.
Taraborrelli has died after being admitted to the hospital due to respiratory complications and there will be no wake or burial, since while he was alive he decided to donate his body to science, according to the actor and director Pedro Santos, who in 2012 co-directed the documentary ‘Dos palmas!!’, dedicated to his teacher.
Taraborrelli’s career is part of the history of Spanish dance in recent decades, where he stands out as a creator and above all a teacher; Among his students, names such as Carmen Maura, Ana Belén, Nacho Duato and Miguel Bosé stand out.
Born in Philadelphia to Italian parents, who instilled in him a deep love of art since he was a child, Taraborrelli studied at Temple University and the Tyler School of Fine Arts.
As a dancer he debuted in a production of the opera ‘Carmen’ in Philadelphia and later in Broadway theaters. In New York he trained under the precepts of Martha Graham and José Limón and in London and Puerto Rico he began to develop his professional career as a choreographer.
It was in Puerto Rico where Taraborrelli came into contact with some of the most prominent figures in Spain at that time, such as Lola Flores y Mercedes and Albano Zúñiga, with whom he would work years later, already in Spain.
He arrived in Madrid in the sixties of the last century, and it was key to meet Miguel Narros and William Leyton, with whom he undertook a fruitful stage in teaching acting and movement that germinated in various independent theater groups such as the Pequeno. Theatre, the Teatro Estudio de Madrid (TEM), the Teatro Estudio Independiente (TEI) and the Teatro Estable Castellano (TEC).
Taraborrelli began to acquire great recognition as a teacher, a facet that he never abandoned. In recent years he had his studio on General Oráa Street in Madrid, which, according to Santos, sometimes seemed more “confessional”, as his students came to listen to his advice “not only about art but also about life.”
As a choreographer, he signed creations for operas such as ‘Orpheus and Eurydice’, ‘Divine Words’, ‘The Swallows’ and ‘Othello’; and for theatrical productions such as ‘The Last Days of Kant’, ‘Don Álvaro or the Force of Fate’, ‘Life is a Dream’ and ‘So Five Years Go By’, among many others.
