A tribute to Juan Ramírez, a flamenco dancer more flamenco than the heel itself
On 5 January 2026, the flamenco world woke up to devastating and unexpected news: the death of Juan Ramírez. A towering figure of flamenco dance and one of the greatest exponents of footwork in the history of the art, he passed away in Alicante following a brief and fatal illness.
At Tablao de Carmen we had the privilege of witnessing one of his final performances. In May 2025 he honoured this house with his presence and his dance, and the gift he gave us with his iconic and masterful zapateo will remain forever among the most treasured memories of the tablao. This piece tells his story as a small tribute to the life of a man who brought depth and authenticity to flamenco dance.
A flamenco dancer from childhood
He was born in Mérida on 16 June 1959, son of a father from Badajoz and a mother from Córdoba. The family moved to Seville when he was a child, and it was there that he threw his first stamps, looking up to the great names of the moment: Farruco, El Mimbre, and Manuela Vargas. Shortly afterwards the family settled in Alicante, where he continued learning flamenco across all three disciplines — singing, guitar, and dance — before ultimately choosing dance as his path. He was not yet of age when he started working at the legendary Madrid tablao Las Brujas. From early on he stood out for his extraordinary footwork, so much so that people called him “el metralleta” — the machine gun. In the capital he met the master of masters, Paco de Lucía, an encounter that would mark his career. He recounted it himself to journalist Alejandro Luque of Expoflamenco: “He was recording Solo quiero caminar, he saw me dance and told me he’d like me to put my feet on a bulerias track on the album. I told him I wasn’t sure I was ready, I had great respect for flamenco and for Paco, who has been the Beethoven of flamenco here in Spain. And he said: ‘Don’t worry, I’ve never seen anyone dance like you.’ He paid me some very beautiful compliments.” As the same journalist noted, the two giants of late 20th-century cante, Camerón and Enrique Morente, said something similar to Juan Ramírez: “You are the best for me,” they told him.
Compás and roots
He took part in Paco’s Solo quiero caminar. He toured Europe with the guitarist from Algeciras, though his deep fear of flying meant he could not join the company on trips to Japan or the United States. With Camerón, he appeared on his final album, Potro de rabia y miel. In those years he won El Giraldillo at the 1982 Bienal de Sevilla and the Premio Nacional Pastora Imperio. He continued touring with great dancers who were then rising names, among them Antonio Canales and Sara Baras. He performed on the major stages of Spain — the Teatro Albéniz, the Palau de València, the Palau de la Música de Barcelona — and shared the stage with virtually every first-rank artist of the last few decades: Lole y Manuel, La Macanita, El Potito, Ketama, Tomatito. And he left his mark on the artists of the future through his much-remembered classes at Amor de Dios, the legendary Madrid school. He also taught outside Spain and, as deflamenco.com wrote in his obituary, “transmitted a way of understanding dance grounded in compás, the truth of the body, and fidelity to the root.”
In 2004 he achieved something rare in the world of flamenco dancers: he released an album, Más flamenco que el tacón, featuring Remedios Amaya, Raimundo Amador, Parrita, La Barbería del Sur, Jorge Pardo, and El Guadiana. In his later years he travelled from Alicante — the city he had made his home — to the great flamenco capitals, working as a guest artist at tablaos such as Torres Macarena in Seville, and Casa Patas and Cardamomo in Madrid. As mentioned, in the spring of 2025 we had the honour of having him on our stage, and a few months later he was gone, leaving an irreplaceable void in the world of lo jondo. As deflamenco.com put it: “He has left behind a career defined by purity, rigour, and a conception of deep dance in which the body — and the feet above all — became an instrument of truth. Self-taught, Ramírez always defended a dance untouched by trends or outside influences, a direct expression of what is felt and what is stamped.” Juan Ramírez, forever in our memory, made history in flamenco dance.
