
From Elda to Madrid 1936-1952
“My father, who is the person I've admired the most and who has influenced me the most, taught me to respect others”.
Antonio Esteve Ródenas, known by his stage name Antonio Gades, was born on November 14, 1936 in Elda, a province of Alicante, and moved to Madrid immediately after the Spanish Civil War. His family is a family of blue-collar workers. His mother works in the footwear industry and his father, a mosaic floor layer, is a diehard communist who signed up with the Republican forces a month before Antonio was born. His father leaves his mother and the newborn Antonio in Elda to volunteer in Madrid and join the October Battalion.