"Dance Like a Man"

Vicente Escudero, 60-odd, all but forgotten as the past master of the Spanish gypsy dance, sat in his room in Madrid reading a letter from France. "You have been the eagle of the dance," it said, "and it is not indecorous for you to become the emperor of instruction." It ended with an invitation to head a dance academy at Paris' famed Salle Pleyel. Escudero accepted, but Old Dancer Escudero, a man who never bothered to count his money, had no cash to make the trip.

So it befell last week that Vicente Escudero danced again--in a farewell to his home town of Valladolid. with all the proceeds to go into a purse to send him to Paris in style. The news drew Escudero aficionados from as far as Madrid, who drove over the snow-filled mountain pass to the onetime capital of Old Castile to watch him once more.

They first saw him silhouetted against a plain grey background on a bare stage, an amazingly lean and youthful figure in tight pants and short jacket, his arms raised in the gypsy dancer's graceful but virile pose. For seven minutes, accompanied only by the rhythmic snapping of his fingernails, he stamped and whirled through the old dances, ending with the crescendo stamping of the flamenco Zapateado. At the finish. Escudero stood motionless, his face whitened and pinched by the effort, as spectators jumped to their feet, applauding wildly. From the gallery, a voice hoarse with emotion shouted: "Vicente, esto es!" (Vicente, that's it!).

Times Change. It was Escudero's last tribute to the town where he was born and where he danced his first carefree steps on the cobblestone streets. His father got him a job in a printing shop, but the ten-year-old Vicente was more fascinated by the presses' rhythm than by their operation, soon took to skipping off to dance on the outskirts of town. Eventually he ran away. At 15 he got to Granada, lived with gypsies for four years and learned all the old dances in their pure forms. Then he took off for a famed vagabond tour throughout Europe, from the cabarets of Paris to the coffeehouses of Istanbul.

The great Pavlova invited him to join her on a U.S. tour; when she died unexpectedly, Escudero made a triumphal trip alone. Glory and wealth poured in. But when World War II closed the frontiers of Europe, he went back to Spain to find that times had changed; the popularity of pure flamenco was waning, and younger dancers were experimenting with the continental ballet style. Escudero scraped together what was left of his fabled earnings and formed his own company, but changing tastes and the indifference of impresarios forced him to close after a few performances.

Flowers Freeze. Lonely and embittered, he took to haunting Madrid's dingier coffeehouses. He gave a few lessons. Much of the rest of his time he spent writing pamphlets attacking modern dance. "The art of genuine flamenco is lost," he says. "Nowadays, male dancers look like grass hoppers or ballerinas." His rules: "Remain still . . . Do not wiggle the hips . . . Dance like a man."

Then came the letter from Paris. After his last bow to the farewell audience in Valladolid last week, Escudero put on his black cape and walked out of the theater, into one of the coldest nights Valladolid recalls. There, awaiting him, stood a shivering crowd, anxious to cheer him once more. Youngsters called for his autograph. A woman's voice rose above the rest. "Vicente!" she cried. "Our flowers are frozen, but we offer you our hearts." Vicente Escudero's face lit up with happiness. "It's like old times," he said. "I had forgotten. Thank you."

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