There was always a group of radicals, malcontents, and indigent writers, intermingled with painters and dancers, waiting to be recharged by Carmelita's personality, for she was great fun to be with.
In her studio, the night before Maracci left for a San Francisco concert, de Mille saw her dance for the first time.
[13] In 1930, she was ready to present for the first time "a program of her own works" to music by Ravel, de Falla, Granados, and Schumann, probably held at Trinity Auditorium.
"Camelita Maracci, the fiery and brilliantly talented West Coast dancer, who combined ballet and Spanish dance" first performed at the Y.
[27][28] In 1922 Falla and poet García Lorca with a coalition of artists produced Concurso de Cante Jondo, a flamenco song and dance festival in Granada.
John Martin, then dance critic at The New York Times, came to conclude: "Both styles are merely materials out of which she fashions an art that is altogether personal, purely subjective in its creative approach, and utterly unique.
"[41] Later Agnes de Mille retold it: Plainly and simply, Carmelita's best dances were the most passionate and powerfully devised solos I have ever seen.
¶ She baffled criticism because her technique fell into two categories: ballet, which, although impeccably correct, was not classic in style, and Spanish, which was virtuoso in its range but highly unorthodox in form and flavor.
With fiery, passionate individuality and deep political and social convictions, she created dances inspired by Goya's war drawings, García Lorca's poetry, and Unamuno's philosophy.
Her dances could be satirical, witty, or flirtatious; a passionate protest of inhumanity or a celebration of human spirit, a plunge to deepest sorrow or an expression of joy.
In the 1940s John Martin of The New York Times wrote six-column reviews hailing Maracci, recognizing her as "a unique phenomenon".
[55] She clearly preferred her intimate solos, alternating with the 'individual voices' of her several dancers, accompanied by a chamber ensemble, rather than a large ballet company with a full orchestra.
[56] Throughout her career, Maracci excelled in fashioning and performing her singular dances, performed solo: Cante Jondo ("Deep Song"), Viva la Madre ("Live for the one who bore you"), Dance of Elegance (a satire, a "caricature of a ballet dancer preening"), La Pasionaria (a radio voice of civil-war Spain, a coal-miner's daughter), Another Goyesca (to a piano suite by Granados about painter Francisco Goya), Carlotta Grisi in Retrospect (about the nineteenth century Italian ballet dancer), The Nightingale and the Maiden (inspired by a poem written in 1500, to music by Granados).
"[63][64] "Although regarded by her peers as one of the leading dancers in the United States... Maracci shrank from the concert stage after two experiences which devastated her.
[68][69] During the Spanish Civil War, Maracci had been greatly moved by La Pasionaria, an exceptional woman whose emotional radio oratory championed a Republican faction.
Oliver Smith, the co-director of Ballet Theatre, told de Mille it needed work, and to give Maracci a "pep talk" to pull the piece together.
Save that word for human suffering, for wars that kill innocent people, for the devastation of the poor and unwanted, for the corruption and cruelty that cause these things in the world.
"[82][83][84] Donna Perlmutter, the Los Angeles journalist who carefully followed her career, quotes Maracci who here is musing on her own inner constellation, on her soul's passage through the arts: "The terrain I've traveled led me into Goya's land of terror and blood soaked pits...
The great gifts in the dance arts that she possessed and crafted were enjoyed for the most part by a few hundreds, by knowledgeable people in the City of Los Angeles, rather than by multitudes of aficionados nationwide, worldwide.
Perlmutter from a podium said: "In literal terms, she Carmelita knew only privilege and doting parents, and never encountered a land of terror and blood soaked pits.
"[88]However hard and durable was her perfectionist spirit, and however vivid her anger at acts of intentional cruelty or political mayhem, she also possessed a corresponding sensitivity for the suffering of the victims of the world.
[92][93] Carmelita wrote: "The performing artist is in a difficult position because the buying public doesn't want people who have dissenting opinions to disturb the illusion."
Later he told Agnes de Mille that when he saw her Carmelita "lay like a little girl, at most thirteen or fourteen years old, absolutely pure, incorporeal, weightless, a spirit.
"Her teaching included politics, poetry, music, and cooking, as a way to nurture the art of dance as an integral part of the student's journey of life.
"[99] Over a teaching career spanning 50 years, among others Maracci taught John Clifford, Gerald Arpino, Joan Bayley, Erik Bruhn, Leslie Caron, William Carter, Charlie Chaplin, Geraldine Chaplin, Joan Chodorow, Janet Collins, Carmen de Lavallade, Agnes de Mille, Paul Godkin, Cynthia Gregory, Allegra Kent, Julie Newmar, Ruth Page, Tommy Rall, Tina Ramirez, Jerome Robbins, Janice Rule, Donald Saddler, Laurie Sibbald, Christine Sarry, and Gwen Verdon.
[104] Cynthia Gregory remembers her teaching class "on pointe and wearing pink tights puffing a cigarette, flicking it out the window and dashing off a fast, furious set of pirouettes.
"[108]Allegra Kent writes, "As a teacher Carmelita was able to impart and illuminate... the ineffable qualities as well as the technical points of ballet."
She treated me as an imaginative child, celebrated my learning, and taught me "that dancing can be a profound experience for the performer and the audience alike."
"[109] "Passionately opinionated, Miss Maracci taught classes with a Socratic tinge, including talk of politics and the other arts of the time.
She continued teaching during her last illness by gathering students around her bedside to talk with them of the art of ballet," wrote dance journalist Jennifer Dunning.