As the character walks through the door, the artist jumps out the window. The choreographer and bailaor Rafael Amargo (48 years old) has once again been in the news, but with events. Last week he was arrested at the Alicante station, when he was going to a performance at a venue, accused of an alleged crime of drug trafficking. The agents of the National Police had traveled from Madrid to arrest him, and they themselves ended up starring in a video that was leaked to televisions. In it you can see Jesús Rafael García Hernández, the real name of the one day flamenco benchmark, kicking and biting while handcuffed.
A young cellmate later recounted that the time passed before going to court screeching «He did not let us sleep, he thought he was crazy. He was there all night: ‘hey, let me out, I haven’t done anything’ and saying that he was thinking of leaving Spain ».
Bitter’s desperation is perfectly understandable. In June he faces a trial for a similar charge, being the owner of a drug store in the capital and organizing a business for the sale of illegal designer substances, for which he is asked for nine years in prison. Anyone who has seen her on stage giving the best version of her art will not recognize the type of broken balance that she asks in the tabloids to have an escort because “they want to mess me up.”
Four Max prizes, Positano Leonide Massine Prize for Dance, Prize from the Spanish Dance and Flamenco Teachers Association of Spain. Born in the Granada town of Valderrubio, at the age of 11 he won the prestigious La Unión National Dance Competition (1996), and the Pavón Cup two years later. He has the Gold Medal of Fine Arts and the Andalusia Medal. He trained in theater and music growing up. He has innovated, researched and collaborated with renowned creators, painters like Luis Gordillo and Esperanza D’Ors, designers like Duyos, Lorenzo Caprile and Amaya Arzuaga. He has taken his lauded shows to China, Japan and the United States, where he was a student of the mythical Martha Graham, and has been nominated for awards for musicals in London. He premiered ‘El amor brujo’ by Manuel de Falla in the Zugarramurdi caves, he was inspired by Chillida’s Peine del Viento. He has traveled the world in free and groundbreaking formats the stories of Federico García Lorca, whom he honored by taking the artistic name of Bitter from one of his characters. How did a man with such a resume end up in this pit? He told the duty judge that he only approaches drugs for his own consumption “and that I don’t even have to eat.” That he travels weekly to Alicante for the 200 euros of the gig. «I lead a very small life, in my parents’ house. This is revenge from my landlord, for not paying him, “he recounted after being provisionally released.
The Bitter of the posters, who mixed flamenco and opera, or jazz, or contemporary dance drawing applause, has been devoured by his private life and his problems with the law. With the same audacity that led him to pose naked for ‘Interviú’ remodeled the Tenerife Carnival gala until it was unrecognizable, with Belén Esteban imitating Madonna for example, which aroused the anger of the people and some lawsuit. His review of ‘Don Quixote’ in the company of La Fura dels Baus was not without controversy either.
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In the press they have been collected from their weddings and separations, to their declarations of bisexuality and the complaints for ill-treatment of a dancer and another of their collaborators. Professor of body expression of ‘Operación Triunfo’ in one of its editions, he has lavished himself on ‘reality shows’ as the duende abandoned him. If there is life on the downhill after programs like ‘Expedición Imposible’ or ‘Top Dance’, Rafael Amargo finds it. Thus, last November he announced that he was planning to upload erotic content on the OnlyFans payment platform, and now they assure that he is negotiating the filming of a series about his troubled life and his adventures.
The first arrest for allegedly drug trafficking took him in 2020 preparing ‘Yerma’ in Madrid, which would hang the sign that there are no locations for days. He had to delay the premiere until he came out with precautionary measures and started on the tables encouraging the public: “In this life things are fixed by singing and dancing.” They replied: Olé!
