Triana shakes off its drowsiness in the unseasonably cold chill of March. The little bars of Castilla Street, one of the main arteries of this Seville neighborhood, are already abuzz. Amidst the smell of the river, fresh coffee and toast, Matilde Coral walks elegantly, pushing up the ever-present bun into which she forms her hair, this woman who was born with the surname Corrales just one year before the Civil War broke out... "What a grand woman!". These words fill her with pride, because they mean recognition, they remind her of her stature. And not only that, they were spoken by "a woman younger than me". And that makes her smile, because if she knew "I'm dragging my thigh along, and you can't imagine how it aches". She mutters to herself that what bone isn't going to ache at this stage of the game...but with an admirable sense of humor. Between guffaws Matilde says "it's really wierd, my bones on the left side hurt most...if my father were alive and I told him that all my pains are left-sided, don't even ask what he'd think". Without losing her smile, her eyes become nostalgic: "My father had a great sense of humor and he said that in all families there is some tragedy, and that in his it was that his daughter liked politics". She needs to pause before responding: "How could I like politics?! What I like is justice!".

This is why she trusts that she will be recognized for the perpetual battle her life has become. A battle, not only for survival, but for flamenco dance, in order to put within the reach of her children that of which she was deprived by the historical moment in which she happened to be born.. A fight for "the ambition to want to make something of herself in life and not pass unnoticed". And she staunchly underlines this bravery: "I don't like cheapness". Even if it were sewing on buttons, "but I need to be known for that".

I went to the Real Escuela Económica Sevillana de Amigos del País, "I was bright, I studied hard, went up to third, but I could never do fourth and go for the degree". Her unfulfilled dream is to have gone to university: "And I would have liked to be a doctor, because I love helping people, I feel somehow like a better person when I help someone".

The concept of creating a foundation might transplant this sense of helping others to the art of flamenco. Although she views it as something impossible. "I think that in order to do that you have to have a lot of money", she says sarcastically. And her tone of voice escalates to clarify "whatever they gave me, it's because I've earned it, I never asked anyone for anything. Nor has she paid for it, because "it's been very expensive to pay for my children's education and I think that was the important thing in my life". With perfect timing, the tiny office covered with mementos ever since she has administered the school is interrupted by the sound of the telephone which brings news of the nomination for yet another prize...."Woman of Seville", she says with a girlish grin and without making any big deal of it. It must be her way. "In Córdoba they've created a national prize in my name, well, shared with Mario Maya. His is alegrías because that's the only form he dances. And for me something a bit grander, tarantos, but whatever....my thing is really alegrías and cantiñas. Imagine, I've got five national prizes in my name".

She takes it with the same philosophy as life itself, but the Medalla de Oro de Andalucía [gold medal of Andalusia] which was already awarded to Antonio Canales last year, is a thorn in her side... "and I'm Andalusian, don't you think I've done anything for dance, that I conserve Andalusian flamenco dancing? I don't care, they'll give it to me eventually. You don't think so? They give me everything, just ten or fifteen years later than to everyone else. And I can wait, because I don't mix politics with things I do out of true love and true moral obligation". In fact, she mentions that the Compás del Cante - a distinction awarded by the Cruzcampo Foundation - was given to her the thirteenth time around, "when singers I had working for me already had it because they were nice guys, because they enjoy social gatherings, because they pay for it one way or another. I don't pay anything, if they give it to me it's because they want to".

For this same reason, she feels helpless in the face of the problem of formally legitimizing the dance academy which, by the sweat of her brow, she has managed to have full from morning to night, "and that in itself is an achievement". Now she says, almost resignedly that "if the higher-ups don't give me a place, I'm going to lose it". And she's not alone in this. Matilde Coral mentions the director of the Bienal de Flamenco de Sevilla, Manuel Herrera, and the current delegate of Urbanismo from the Seville Town Hall, Rafael Carmona, as allies in this fight which is nearly a lost cause: "These are people who mean business, because I've still got plenty of fight in me and my gratitude is no small thing. I show my gratitude at the right moment, when you least expect it". And if she wins the battle, the thing that will hurt Matilde most will be having to leave Triana, this woman who is so thoroughly saturated with Triana that they say she's a force to be reckoned with. The crux of the issue is whether the administration will agree to include the Andalusian school of dance in the curriculum of Spanish Dance: "It's their loss, the truth is that I can't run up against brick walls, I have neither money nor time for such things. I've got what I've got, and I'm satisfied with it". And her gaze is lost among the clicking of castanets sounding from another room.

But the day-to-day running of this center of "the Seville shool of Andalusian dance" as she likes to call it, is beginning to wear her down....logical, after picking up the telephone about ten times and hanging up, not without first having to deal with the president of her cooperative building, the plumber, and the typical wide-eyed foreigner who wants to learn flamenco in one week. For this reason, tired of such hectic activity, she passed the reins on to her daughter Rocío, "and I've stayed on as emeritus professor".

Now she permits herself the luxury of enjoying free time with her husband, the flamenco dancer Rafael El Negro, of whom the twinkle in her eyes bespeaks a love as strong as when she married him at just over twenty. Matilde Coral's hobbies are, as is fitting, very special. She's said it many times, that her main hobby is "practicing the Catholic, apostolic, Sevillian religion", not the Roman. This interest has led her to collect saints..."I've got all the little cards of the saints", because she's convinced that "if those people got where they are, it's because they did something very important in their lives". The person who most caught her attention, although now he's a little neglected, is Escrivá de Balaguer, all of whose books she collects. "and I study his thinking very carefully". Matilde leaves no room for doubt that "I don't belong to the Opus Dei", but I realize that "he was well-liked, he had a special attraction for people, because he was a fine person, and I can't understand why they have to split hairs after his death".

Nowadays she has more secular interests; "I'm looking for words that have fallen into disuse and keeping track of them". Words from Triana, from her parents, "from people I hear speak and who are very old... And they're delightful, I write them down because I love them". After obsessively ripping up a small piece of graph paper with her perfectly manicured red nails, she returns to the conversation with: "Ah! And I'd like to go Carlos Sobera's program, because I know all the answers, except the ones about pop music groups. That's where I mess up, they kill me". The burning desire to make something of herself in life and not pass unnoticed, that zeal had her reading herself to sleep many nights with Miguel Hernández, to the light of an oil lamp "reading wonderful things to get cultured, because we couldn't go to school, we had nothing to eat". Matilde had to get by studying on her own. "It's enough to just say I was born in '35, and the reader knows all too well what I've gone through. They took you out of one school and put you in another. I've been through a lot."

Candela Olivo
Translation: Estela Zatania