Mario Maya

Mario Maya (Cordoba, 1937 - Seville, 2008). Dancer

Contemporary of Antonio Gades, with a parallel meaning in the historic perspective of Spanish dance. The difference may lie in the concept. Maya is essentially flamenco, with the jondo feeling very close to his roots. He has also had a much more diverse career than Gades, as while the latter has hardly danced anywhere but a theater stage, Maya has performed in the zambra cave, the fiesta hall, the tablao and, of course, the theater. When he was five, he bought a pair of old boots from a rag and bone man for two pesetas: "They had two holes like that in the soles, and I put cardboard in; I would rehearse. The cardboard wore out and I would put more cardboard in". A gypsy from the Sacromonte, in Granada, where his family went to live when he was two years old. He went to the school of Father Manjón, which was founded for Gypsies and learned to read and write while he learned to dance. Then, when he was about eight, he went to the caves of the Sacromonte, to the zambras, to earn a few pesetas dancing for the tourists. There were no great artists in his family, but the jondo lifestyle impregnated everything at home. When he was 13 or 14, he went to Madrid, thanks to an English painter who met the lad there and portrayed him. The painting won a prize in London and the painter sent the amount she won to the boy’s mother for her to take him to the capital to study dance, because she considered he had possibilities that should not be wasted. Indeed he studied for two weeks with El Estampío, but he got bored and left it, beginning to frequent the colmao Villa Rosa in the Plaza Santa Ana. He then entered Zambra, where Pilar López saw him and took him to her company. He spent several years with her and understood that dance is a profession, a career which one must undertake with no saving on effort and sacrifice. She always considers him "A very good dancer. Very creative. A genius, a lot of grace, a lot of style ...". The next step was creation of the Trío Flamenco de Madrid, with his wife to be, the dancer Carmen Mora, and Eduardo Serrano el Güito. He then went to New York, where he spent a year and a half in the closest contact he could with the art, an experience that in a certain way brought about his intellectual transformation, and from there he returned to Granada with his head "full of things". From then on, he knew what he wanted to do, how he could develop a flamenco drama, tell something, transform it, to be able to express a dramatic, or non dramatic story, but a story, through dance and song, giving a coherence to things, for the singers and guitarists to also take part in the movement ... After several attempts, the poet Juan de Loxa wrote Ceremonial for Maya (1974), which was not only his first show of his own, but also a pioneering show among those of its kind, that was very well received by the public and critics. In 1976, Mario Maya presented Camelamos naquerar, a work by the poet, also from Granada, José Heredia Maya and it became an unprecedented success. The following triumph in the theater by Maya, and of course of an exceptional quality, was ¡Ay... Jondo!, also written by Juan de Loxa, in 1980. In 1984 there was El Amargo, another of the key works of Maya, very freely inspired on the verses of García Lorca. In 1988 he produced his version of Amor Brujo for the Festival of Venice. In 1982 he won the Giraldillo del Baile (for dance) at the Biennial of Flamenco Art of Seville, where he had memorable performances. By then he had won important prizes for his show case: the National for Dance of Jerez in 1971; the Juana la Macarrona for alegrías and Pastora Imperio for bulerías at the Competition of Cordoba in 1977... Then there was the Medal of Andalusia in 1986 and the National Prize for Dance in 1992. He has performed in films. The critics have never denied Maya recognition of his great artistic dimension. Agustín Gómez, for example, wrote about him: "The stillness of his hips is outstanding as a detail of the demands of purity and discipline, as the main aesthetic. The harmony of his hands and feet provides the perfect formal balance, because they have more intelligence than heart. The outward turn of his wrist, fingers together, his swinging arms - which he told me he learned from Anzonini-, his silhouette with its greatly vivacious communication, his dynamics that are more visual than sonorous, his characteristic profile pose ... are technical garments that provide him the wisdom of unsurpassable aesthetic". Tres movimientos flamencos (1992) and Requiem (1994) are the last two important choreographies by Maya. The second began his experience with the Andalusian Dance Company, the dream of many lovers of Andalusian dance, which Maya was able to set up as director. Maya has encouraged evolution of flamenco dance throughout his career, even though he is aware of the risk always involved, but he is convinced that any such process must have perfect knowledge of all the preceding history as a base, that is to say, of the dance that flamenco may consider classical. "The moment has come for the artist to evolve in a normal, natural way. Society changes and it requires artists with that purity to evolve to be able to tell things in a different way, with the body, with song or playing".

Listen to / view sample clips