Fancy Footwork of Several Kinds Keeps Lola Montes’ Spanish Dancers in the Spotlight

When Lola Montes first started in show business, all she needed was talent, brains and looks. But these days, she’s found that to survive in her chosen field of entertainment--Spanish dancing--she needs the savvy of a government lobbyist.

“Twenty years ago we only had to worry about getting an itinerary together,” Montes said. “Now, it’s a whole new situation. It isn’t just the dance steps. You need a certain amount of intelligence. There are grant proposals and filing fees to worry about.”

Ten years ago, Montes discovered that maintaining a dance company in an era of dwindling government dollars for the arts meant she would have to spend most of her time raising money. (“It’s a 24-hour job, 365 days a year.”) When she found that her dancers couldn’t perform before certain audiences unless the group was incorporated as a nonprofit institution (and thus, eligible for hard-to-get government grants), she quickly adjusted.

“And by golly, we got the first grant we applied for,” Montes said. “It wasn’t much, but it was a start. We have a company that’s 31 years old and we haven’t missed a season yet.”

Montes and the 12 members of her company, Spanish Dancers, will perform at 5:30 p.m. Sunday at Warner Park in Woodland Hills.

Of the lobbying and hustling, she said, “You either do it or you hang up your castanets.”

Montes’ skill at acquiring money for her dance company has made her a highly respected member of the arts community. She has been a consultant for the National Endowment for the Arts; has been on an advisory board of the California Arts Council. and has served several terms as president of the defunct L.A. Area Dance Alliance.

She works with schoolchildren through the California Heritage Program, offering a mixture of dance and commentary devised to inform students about Hispanic heritage. She also offers several master classes and workshops at various colleges and teaches privately in a studio she set up in back of her Hollywood home.

Before she became a self-described “crusader for dance,” Montes was more famous as a performer and choreographer. She got her start during the 1940s in New York when, as a young girl, she was spotted by a member of the famous Carmen Amaya Dancers, made up of mostly Spanish Gypsies, and given a job in the show.

“I was so green in the beginning,” Montes said. “I wasn’t a Gypsy so I just sat in the corner and had nothing to say. But Carmen was magic. Whenever she performed I was always in the wings, learning and picking things up, sort of through osmosis. I was always very bright, and I was always the best in the class.”

When Montes came to Hollywood with the Amaya dance troupe, she fell in love with Southern California. “I remember seeing people wearing pants,” said Montes, who was used to the white gloves-and-skirt look of New York City. “I immediately went out and bought a pair for myself and wore them until it was time to go back to New York.”

Montes found herself back in Hollywood when the old Perry Studios on Highland offered her a dance job. Soon after, a scout from Columbia Artists Management saw her and signed her. She was allowed to train other dancers and began touring throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico. She hasn’t stopped since.

At Sunday’s show, the company will perform its newest piece, “Alma Llanera,” a suite derived from the dances done by cattle breeders in the plains of Colombia. The company premiered the new dances only last week. The rest of the program, like other shows, will be what Montes calls “a mix of everything that fits into a concert,” including flamenco.

“Spanish dance is very complicated,” Montes said. “There are so many different schools, from the classical, where you really need to have solid ballet training, to neoclassical, to the different regional schools. And then there are the dances of the Americas--Peru, Venezuela, Mexico.”

The only dances Montes’ group does not perform are the more modern variations of the old dances. “I’m known for holding on to tradition,” she said. “If everyone starts innovating, then you won’t have any tradition left.”

But Montes doesn’t disapprove of those who change the directions of Spanish dance; some are even former students of hers.

“I have a lot of patience,” Montes said. “You just have to love to dance and then you’re my friend.”