I went to Mariano’s classes pregnant with my first son more than twenty years ago. Today my imagination took me to visualize our dear friend, Jared Newman, the guitar player we lost in 2020, welcoming Mariano in the new arena of Heavenly Bulerías. He probably brought him to the VIP flamenco lounge to greet José Molina and so many others. I imagine him now as I met him, with his boots, with his opaque precise castanets, free from pain and full of flamenco and Escuela Bolera.

It is with deep sorrow but also with the will to write down part of the legacy that Mariano´s teachings left us and some anecdotes from our friendship over the years. I feel teary and happy to have had the opportunity of honoring him while he was here. We celebrated him, nurtured our friendship, and paid homage to him a few times, with his important birthdays and when he and José Molina were honored in a special celebration. Here are my memories of his teachings.

Mariano`s legacy for all the students, whether as a dance mentor, or coach, for those of us who enjoyed his classes for a long period of time, we kept his wisdom. His lessons were a combination of serious technique, rhythm, body, marcajes, practice but also humor, all at the same time. His teachings would go beyond the class extending them to life in general. He could frame dance as a painter, as a writer, and also as a philosopher to confront the adversities of life.

He would describe dance lessons as a philosopher of life.

¨You need contrast¨ he always insisted, otherwise is boring, dance needs to have inhale and exhale moments. ¨Passion has no intelligence¨. We could write endless essays about these few statements, or the need of ¨controlled passion¨.

Mariano Parra did appreciate the virtuosity of dance in its pureness but holistically, he had formed over the years a strict lens through which he filtered dance performances and he would not avoid sharing his comments. He would insist on the need of controlled passion, it was a mantra. Excess of emotion for the sake of emotion with no real dance foundation, was for him, just show. He disapproved the tendency of many dancers to commercialize the art of dancing based on a way to show how fast, how complicated and how impossible to replicate a step in their dance could be. He would not like, as he would say: all the purrrumpururmrmrurp chimpa pa,.tunta… or something like that. ¨Footwork alone in this manner is not dance, but noise¨ he would say. He highlighted that there was need for foreplay.

For him, less was always more, simplicity with contrast in the dance floor. He did not buy when sophistication meant trying to find the new, but the new for the sake of calling it new, he did not love `fusion¨ or the excess of prioritizing the footwork over the rest of the body, nor did he like to prioritize one space on stage. He had a code for a dancer to understand dance holistically.

All that, until the moment of the performance arrived.

¨Once you are on the dance floor, forget the technique and just dance- but…. With controlled passion. Technique, practice and study should stay at the studio.¨

Mariano also trained his students by telling them: Unless you could go over your dance with no mistakes, for at least 4 times in a row, knowing the map of it, its sequences, its nuances, you should not go on stage. If you passed 4 times, you were then ready.

Mariano could see a dancer and explain according to the height, the shape of the body or any particularities why certain steps, or shapes would make the dancer look better on stage, or taller, or with more presence. He was always right. He knew about presence and choreography. As a dancer he, himself, was an elegant and precise dancer, let’s accept it, he had high expectations for everyone.

His frame of reference had to be art in capital letters in all the aspects. Dancing for him was also writing sentences. There should be entrances, introductions, first part, second part, plot moment, and denouement. Punctuation while dancing was as important for him. Arm up or down while ending a step or remate had always a meaning for Mariano.

Because our eternal conversations on dance, I borrowed a few times La Meri´s book and bought her book of how to design the floors for a dance choreography. La Meri was Mariano´s main influence. Mariano talked often about La Meri as his mentor.

He learnt about the art of choreography through her. He would talk of the invisible strokes of paint and design a dancer should make in the air, in the space, on the floor… air design, floor design and map. He highlighted how that, what we cannot see, is as important as what you do with your body, with the music, with the cante and the guitar, for him everything counts; ¨a wink could be seen from the audience¨ he once said. ¨Don’t forget, don’t look at the audience, they are here and paid to look at you and your dance¨.

He would specify the invisible steps and the design in the air of our bodies that really make the magic as an old negative of those old polaroid pictures. He would always remind us how the body was some sort of transportation that needed to have the map for dancing. The stage needed to also leave the traces of spirals that were movement, not only use front center and overpower the paint in one spot, no fudge.

As in life, in the dance floor, Mariano insisted you need to know where you are going, and the head was usually the lead for the direction. In Mariano’s classes there was always a sense of learning seriously with tons of humor, and lots of coochi coos, and frankly, without the anxiety some of us might have felt in other classes where the egos can be a little high or where we just might have felt judged.

That did not happen in Mariano´s class. Mariano was strict in a sweet way and in a funny way, and sometimes, yes, he would come to move your arm, to achieve the alignment between the one arm with the hand over the head, and the other in front with elbow aligned with nose, knee and toes in a pose, then looking at the mirror, once you realized you achieved the pose, he would say, “See? There!”

When I visited in the recent months, Mariano once gave me a big scare. He had his walker and would do his hallway back and forth a few times every day to exercise. During my visit he wanted me to watch his progress. He looked at me and said: Stay there, and he started running with his walker and laughing, he was so proud. -Mariano, Mariano what are you doing? I said, you should not be running! Then he turned around, looked at me and said: WATCH ME… and continued all the way back to his apartment, we laughed so hard.

Recently at the hospital, he had a hard time expressing and it was hard to understand him. I was there before his sister Mariana arrived and thought about playing him music, I searched on my phone and said to Mariano if you want music close your eyes, and he did, I started playing and was so happy, after a few seconds, when he listened the beautiful piano piece, with his weakened voice, I heard: “Albéniz…”

We must always remember, not the last time but all the times. I had the privilege to see him the day before his passing. Mariana also played Villalobos Bachianas, Brasileiras #5 that day and I felt the sorrow of the melody inside, with that, I touched his forehead with love and left him watching or better, listening to Fred Astaire dancing with Julie Garland in Easter Parade.

Mariano Parra remate was smooth, his vision, his teachings, his essence are now part of the New York Flamenco flavor. We love you Mariano, keep the coochi coo going…

With love, Silvia