On Friday, September 26, 2003 American flamenco dancer Tibu Lubart was killed in an automobile accident in Jerez at the age of 56.
She was well-known in flamenco circles both in Jerez and the US. The following is her biography as it appears on her webpage:
Tibu 'la Tormenta', Henriette Yedid-Halevi Lubart, of Sephardic-Gypsy descent, born in upstate N.Y., comes from a very musical family.
Her father, trained as a concert pianist until the war shattered his illusions, constantly played the piano, sang and put his children to sleep with the recorder; her grandmother was an interpreter of Arab song, her great-aunt sang, danced and played the piano;
her uncle was a violinist for the silent-movies. Her brother is an accomplished musician, composer and percussionist.
She began her life attending rehearsals of her mother's classical French theatre productions at Vassar College.
Her future was decided at age four when she saw Carmen Amaya dance.
At age five, she began taking dance lessons in Spain and the U.S. as well piano lessons. She was the demonstrator for the Spanish dance class of Mateo and Carola Goya at Connecticut College where she met Martha Graham. Accustomed to the stage, since the age of five, she toured in dance companies during school vacations. She completed a 'Baccalauréat es philosophie' in the Lycée français de N.Y. and a B.A. in Anthropology at City College of N.Y.
She was the partner of Caracolillo, husband of the famous Juanita Reina. She began in the Tablao Flamenco circuit, rubbing shoulders with most of the best performers of the time. Madrid: Arco de Cuchilleros, Torres Bermejas, Cafe de Chinitas, Cuevas de Nemesio, Corral de la Pacheca, Corral de la Morería, los Cabales and los Canasteros.Costa del Sol: El Jaleo, la Taberna Gitana, la Castañuela, Fiesta, la Pagoda Gitana. Barcelona: el Cordobés. Canarias: el Pachá. Cádiz: el Tablao Flamenco.
She married Agujetas de Jerez and for fifteen years, performed with him in the Festivales de España, in the summer, and in countless peñas, theatres and universities during the winter. Together they traveled to N.Y. and performed at Carnegie Hall, the New School, Columbia University and la Sangria. They represented Spain in the Smithsonian Institute's Folklife Festival in Wash. D.C.., where they were featured in an NBC TV. documentary. They toured the western US, working in countless theatres and universities, including the Colorado Dance Festival, Nairopa Institute for Buddhist Studies, and numerous engagements throughout the San Francisco Bay area. They moved on to a three month tour of Mexico. Upon returning to Spain, they opened a Tablao with Agujetas 'Viejo': La Fragua, where she worked with the legendary Juana Pipa, renowned for her beautiful arm-work.
When her younger son became deaf from meningitis, she began teaching handicapped children, song-signing the flamenco dance . She received a Choreographer's Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and worked for the Texas Commission on the Arts. She performed in the Houston tablao: El Rincón Andaluz, and worked with Audrey Hepburn for U.N.I.C.E.F. She opened a dance academy in Sevilla, where she helped the Asociación Cultural de Sordos win first Prize in the Concurso Nacional de Baile Folklórico de Sordos.
She moved back to Jerez, and with Parrilla de Jerez, gave workshops and recitals. She performed in the Bienal de Sevilla, and throughout Europe and the U.S.: in Geneva with the Ateliers d'Ethnomusicologie, in N.Y. with the Omega Institute and alternated worshops with performing nightly in Juan Parrilla's Tablao: El Lagar de Tío Parrilla.
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In Memoriam: Letters from Classmates
From Yves Le Scieller: "The news of Tibou's death came as a tremendous shock to me. Thanks to the Alumni association I had been in contact with Tibou for several months. Although we both lived in Spain, we had not yet had the opportunity to meet. This opportunity was to have taken place on September 30th, four days after her death. Tibou was to have stayed at my house and meet my family on the night of the 30th of September just before taking a flight to the US on October 1st.....I waited for her at the train station in Madrid that evening, but never imagined such a tragic reason to explain why she did not show up. I can't really find the words to express my feelings since I received your note - there is something of emptiness, anger and bitterness, and many other feelings....[This is] far from expressing what I really feel.....Unfortunately I cannot talk about Tibou as she recently was, because we had saved the joy of getting to know each other again for that evening which never took place....whence the feeling of emtpiness."
From Victor de la Serna: "I am saddened as well as amazed -I knew back then that Tibou was of Sephardic descent but she never told me or any other Spaniard at the Lycée that she was already so deeply into flamenco! For the past 40 years our paths have probably crossed many times in Spain, yet I never knew until the news of her tragic death reached me."
Tibou Lubart, Renée Marton, and Sandra Haas
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