May O'Donnell—dancer, choreographer, and teacher—was born in 1906 in California. After discovering dance at the age of seventeen, she eventually performed with Estelle Reed, a San Francisco-based teacher and choreographer who had studied with Mary Wigman in Europe. Moving to New York in 1932, O'Donnell took classes at the Wigman studio run by Hanya Holm. She had never heard of Martha Graham, but following the suggestion of a fellow student, she showed up at Graham's Greenwich Village studio. Watching O'Donnell effortlessly execute deep pelvic contractions and spinal twists, Graham asked if she had ever studied the technique. O'Donnell replied no. After a short period of intensive study, she was taken into Graham's company. From 1932 to 1938, and later, from 1944 to 1950, her splendid presence lent itself unforgettably to Graham's work. A riveting performer whose dancing was once described by Ernestine Stodelle as “Amazonian,” O'Donnell originated roles such as the Pioneer Woman in Appalachian Spring, She of the Earth in Dark Meadow, The Chorus in Cave of the Heart, and The Attendant in Herodiade.

There is so much information available on flamenco in music books and magazines, on video and DVD inserts and film covers, compact disc jackets, and especially the Internet that it is difficult to determine what materials are worthwhile and reliable. In the world of flamenco, artists' and aficionados' opinions are inclined to be subjective. Given flamenco's exoticized nature juxtaposed with its current drive toward modernity, one wonders where the truth lies.

The biggest problem has been that Spanish and flamenco dance scholarship often contains questionable opinions and observations, as is the case in the book Flamenco, edited by Claus Schreiner, with contributions on Baile Flamenco by Schreiner and Marion Papenbrok (Schreiner 1990). There is some good material here on flamenco dancing, but it is tainted by a lack of understanding of flamenco dance history, for example, when Schreiner ponders “what is to be made of Carlos Saura's [films] Carmen [Piedra 1984/1986] or Blood Wedding? No matter how well Antonio Gades and his troupe dance in these films…they have little to do with true flamenco” (Schreiner 1990, 31).