“People came from everywhere to see her shows,” an admirer said — including, on at least one occasion, the ballet superstar Mikhail Baryshnikov.
María Benítez, an American dancer and choreographer who, as the founder of a popular Spanish dance troupe, played a major role in making New Mexico a hotbed for flamenco, died on Tuesday at her home in Santa Fe. She was 82.
Her death was confirmed by her son, Francisco Benítez, who is her only immediate survivor and who did not specify a cause.
Ms. Benítez was born in Minnesota, but she spent most of her childhood in Taos, N.M., where she began taking ballet classes at 10. At 18, she moved to Spain to study Spanish dance. There, in 1965, she met Cecilio Benítez, who was in charge of scenography and lighting at the Fontalba Theater in Madrid. They soon married, and she brought him back to her homeland, settling in New Mexico, where she started teaching and performing Spanish dance at El Nido, a bar in Santa Fe.
The Benítezes formed a dance troupe, at first called the María Benítez Spanish Company and then later named the María Benítez Teatro Flamenco. In 1976, they moved to New York and began splitting their time between that city and Santa Fe. The company became the troupe in residence at the Lodge at Santa Fe and performed every summer in a cabaret theater that was modeled on the flamenco tablaos of Spain and was eventually named after her.
“She helped make New Mexico a capital of flamenco, not just in the United States but on the global scale,” Nicolasa Chávez, who is the deputy state historian of New Mexico and the author of “The Spirit of Flamenco: From Spain to New Mexico” (2015), said in an interview. “People came from everywhere to see her shows” — including, Ms. Chávez recalled, the ballet superstar Mikhail Baryshnikov.
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