The Library of Congress of the United States preserves in its collections a curious film, practically a single take of about twenty seconds, shot at the Black Maria studios in New Jersey in March 1894. Its promoter was Thomas Alva Edison himself, promoter of the company, who at that time was experimenting with the kinetoscope as the best way to capture moving images.
In the film a woman appears dancing, possibly the first to stand in front of a film camera. Her name was Carmen Doucet Moreno – she would later Frenchize her last name as Dauset – she was born in Almería and, with her Spanish dance skills and the stage name Carmencita, she had conquered the Broadway stages.
Carmen was born on August 9, 1868 in the Almería district of Las Almadabrillas, daughter of the couple formed by Manuel Doucet and Josefa Moreno, a couple of humble origins, parents of three other children (María del Mar, Juan and Nicolás).
In 1877 he settled in Malaga in order to improve his living conditions. It was there where her older sister, well versed in the popular dances of Andalusia, introduced Carmen to dancing and singing.
María del Mar Doucet was married to a famous singer of the time, Antonio Grau, Rojo el Alpargatero, who would end up becoming one of the main promoters of cante de las minas in La Unión (Murcia). Her prestige allowed her to facilitate the debut of her young sister-in-law at the Cervantes Theater in Malaga in 1880.
Always together with her sister and brother-in-law, Carmen undertook a series of tours around different Spanish venues. At that time, she was just one of many dancers who performed in the many singing cafés that populated most of the country's cities. However, her luck changed when an exceptional dancer and guitarist named Trinidad Huertas, La Cuenca, noticed her.
Convinced of her worth, Trinidad hired her to perform with his company. In 1889, under the pseudonym of the Pearl of Seville, Carmen crossed the Pyrenees and traveled to Paris to perform in one of the many shows offered on the occasion of the Universal Exhibition in the French capital.
The trip changed his life. Spanish, understood as something exotic and passionate, was in fashion since romantic literature and theater brought it to the fore. In the Pearl of Seville, the public and critics believed they saw the reincarnation of Carmen born from the pen of Mérimée and set to music by Bizet.
A clever American businessman, Bolossy Kiralfy, must have thought the same thing, who offered Carmen an advantageous contract that led her to cross the pond and appear in New York.
On August 17, 1889, Carmen arrived in New York in the company of other members of the Parisian Nouveau Cirque, which Kiralfy had also hired. Two weeks later, as Carmencita, she debuted at Niblo's Garden theater on Broadway, taking part in a variety show called Antiope.
The victory was resounding. Critics and the public surrendered to her abilities, to the point that the New York Times wrote: “Carmencita is not just another dancer. Her dances are strange and seductive. It is worth going to Niblo’s just to see her.”
Established as a star in her genre, Carmen began a tour with the company to other North American cities, such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and Boston. She danced peteneras or bulerías, accompanied by a septet of guitars, but she did not disdain to include oriental dances in her show, so in vogue at the time, and, occasionally, she would also sing some fandango.
Her legend grew due to the creation that she herself made of her character. Thus, she claimed to be a gypsy, or told a bizarre story according to which she had been captured by some bandits and escaped unscathed after captivating them with her dances.
Expert in designing her own image campaign, on the occasion of her debut as the only star at Madison Square Garden, she appeared at the doors of the venue aboard a golden carriage. When she got off, she improvised some dance moves to the delight of her many admirers. Such a spectacular appearance made her write to the New York correspondent of the Atlanta newspaper The Sunny South that “‘no politician, no minister, even no actor before, probably, received such a welcome in this city.”
He wasn't wrong. And Carmencita was not only appreciated by the public, but also by critics. As an example, when she had to dance before the Boston Cadet Corps in 1891, her legs were insured with a policy of five thousand dollars, an amount that would be equivalent, today, to about one hundred and forty thousand euros.
Some of the most important artists of the time succumbed to its charms. In 1890, John Singer Sargent immortalized her in an oil painting, currently kept in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, where she appears dressed in a stage costume; Apparently, the portrait derived from a note taken by the artist while the dancer was performing. William Merritt Chase did the same for her, also in 1890, who captured her dancing her famous petenera and accompanied by her castanets.
In 1894, Edison, attracted by her fame, summoned her to the Black Maria studios. It seems that Carmencita performed some dance steps in front of a frontal camera in a fixed shot. It was, possibly, the swan song of the star who had conquered the American stage.
Tiredness from her long tours and her differences with Kiralfy's production company made Carmen want to return to Europe. Shortly after filming before Edison's camera, she sold all of her property in the United States and, according to some authors, she traveled to London, where she danced at the Palace Theatre.
A year later, in 1895, settled in Paris, she performed continuously at the Théâtre des Nouveautés until 1901, when she embarked for Rio de Janeiro to debut with the show Moulin Rouge. Since that moment, versions of the final years of her Broadway star are confusing.
While some authors claim that he died in Rio de Janeiro that same year, as a result of yellow fever, others place his death around 1910 in Aliquippa (Pennsylvania), which would mean that he had returned to the United States. In any case, Carmencita will always remain in her memory because of the celluloid, which made her the first woman to pose in front of a movie camera.
