An era ends at El Corral de la Morería

Across from Las Vistillas and just a few steps from the Madrid Viaduct is an establishment that Mariah Carey calls on personally when in town to book a table and a plate of paella. It is also where Harrison Ford has a few drinks after enjoying dinner and a show. The venue is El Corral de la Morería, a 55-year-old flamenco tablao, which on Thursday said goodbye to its longtime star, Blanca del Rey.

Though leaving the stage, the dancer will remain active at the helm of what she calls her "temple," while teaching at the flamenco ballet she created in 1983.

Del Rey first arrived at El Corral de la Morería at the age of 14. Soon after, she married the owner, Manuel del Rey, and her career has been linked to the establishment ever since. That is why, although her last performance will take place on Monday at the International Festival of Las Minas in Murcia, Del Rey made sure to reserve one last night for her Madrid audience, a night she hoped would not be wrought with the emotion "of saying goodbye to an entire life."

Del Rey thought it best to end her career while she is still in her prime. "It's a very tough decision, but you need to be humble enough to say no more," she said, speaking before the show in Madrid. "If you quit while you're still on top, people will keep positive memories of you."

The bailaora is convinced that flamenco will continue to move people wherever it is performed, regardless of the fact that it is now on the Unesco list of Cultural Intangible Heritage of Humanity. "Heritage is created when humanity approves of you, and flamenco has been doing that for a very long time," she says.

The winner of the 1999 National Flamenco Award has complete confidence in the younger generations of flamenco artists who will fill her shoes, citing dancers such as Marcos Flores and Rocío Molina.

"Sometimes they make mistakes, but they're young," she notes, adding that tablaos, the small stages inside bars, is where you see the best flamenco.

"You have nothing to cushion you. Being able to hush the audience and make them fall in love with you - that's what makes you an artist."

Del Rey says that flamenco will continue to evolve because it has "always been about evolution." She also believes that it is heavily loaded with literary meaning. "What you feel when you read Lorca, that's flamenco," she says.

She makes reference to the "majesty and elegance" of Pilar Gómez and the "strength and genius" of Carmen Amaya, and says she watched the documentaries on both dancers avidly.

Outside the artistic terrain, Blanca del Rey participated in many legendary nights at the Corral. She talks of witnessing the budding romance between the Shah of Persia and Farah Diva, who were introduced to each other by her husband, and of another time when she let Salvador Dalí in with his pet panther. She remembers watching Frank Sinatra become furious when Ava Gardner flirted with "that bullfighter," Luis Miguel Dominguín, who was sat at a distant table.

Once, with shaking legs, she ascended the stage to be kissed by Hollywood star Rock Hudson, who gently removed the flower in her hair to do so, replacing it after. The number of famous faces at the Corral also drew scores of journalists to the place. "Every night was news," explains Del Rey.

She wells up when she recalls the moment when actress Lana Turner went up on stage and whispered in her ear, "I leave with the memory of your dance and the love of my children," two months before dying of cancer.

This year, the prestigious festival of Las Minas is dedicated to Enrique Morente, the flamenco artist who died suddenly in December 2010. Blanca del Rey had been planning to perform her farewell dance to his musical accompaniment, both in Madrid and Murcia.

"We were both going to say goodbye. Well, he wasn't going to, but he was going to accompany me in my farewell," she says, lamenting the absence of "the great one, a mystic of song."

Del Rey may be leaving the stage for good, but along with her children, she will continue to run the establishment that she feels is unequaled. "La Morería is La Morería. It is unique and irreplaceable," she says.