Tribute to the dancer Mario Maya at the Music and Dance Festival of Granada

Mario Maya Fajardo, born in Córdoba in 1937, died in Seville in 2008. A dancer and choreographer, he lived in Granada from a very young age, where he began his art in the caves of Sacromonte, dancing for tourists. The English painter Josette de Jones painted an oil portrait of him, which won him a prize in a competition, and sent him 200,000 pesetas from London so that he could study his art in Madrid. After attending the Estampío academy for two weeks in 1955, he frequented the Villa Rosa colmao in Madrid, until he performed with Manolo Caracol and then joined the tablao Zambra, together with Rosa Durán, Pericón de Cádiz, Perico el del Lunar, Rafael Romero, and Juan Vera. From 1956 until 1990, he traveled to various foreign countries on different tours.

In 1959, He joined the Madrid tablao El Corral de la Morería, and then formed a partnership with La Chunga, with whom he made his debut at the Biombo Chino nightclub in Madrid, and toured Venezuela, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the United States, Argentina and Colombia. In 1961, he performed at the Granada festivals and at the Torres Bermejas tablao in Madrid, partnering María Baena, and then travelling to America, touring Argentina, Chile, Peru and Brazil. Upon his return, they reappeared at Torres Bermejas, together with Carmen Mora. In 1965, he moved to New York, where he gave his first concert the following year, after which he was hired by Columbia as a Recital Manager artist. Back in Spain, he created the Madrid trio with Carmen Mora and Güito, which performed on stages and festivals, winning the following awards: the Vicente Escudero dance and choreography award in Valladolid in 1976, and the national dance award from the Chair of Flamenco and Andalusian Folklore Studies in Jerez de la Frontera in 1977.

In 1986 he was awarded the Giraldillo prize in Seville at the second Seville City Flamenco Art Biennial, and was awarded the Andalusian Medal for performing at the third Madrid Flamenco Summit. In 1983 he founded the Mario Maya Activity Centre in Seville for teaching flamenco, classical and jazz dance. He has recorded two short films and a feature film on disc.

The Department of Culture of the Andalusian Government appointed him artistic director of the Andalusian Dance Program in 1994. As a result of this program, Mario formed the first Company of the Autonomous Community, based at the Teatro de la Maestranza, Seville. In which he made his debut on November 12 and 13, 1994. ""Requiem for the End of the Millennium"".
Mario Maya is, without a doubt, one of the most outstanding personalities in flamenco dance. Creator of a new style and new followers, and among them his own daughter Belén Maya, heir to a technique and savoir-faire on stage.