In Seville, the spiritual home of flamenco in the Andalusia region of southern Spain, the cigarette factory where the gypsy girl Carmen worked in Prosper Merimee's eponymous 1845 novella is still standing.
Though the building is now part of a university law school, fans of the book and Georges Bizet's opera of the same name that it inspired still flock to see where the sultry temptress seduced and besotted the naive cop Don Jose so her smuggler friends could bring contraband into the city unchallenged.
However, Seville-born dancer and choreographer Maria Pages — who brings her latest work, "Yo, Carmen," to Tokyo this month — takes issue with that fictional narrative.