Brief story and biography

Mara doesn’t remember a time when she wasn’t moving and dancing. Coming from a disadvantaged background and raised by her grandmother visual artist Ana Irene Suarez Atencio, she begins dance training at the age of ten at Escuela Ballet-Arte in Caracas, Venezuela. The Ballet-Arte School (initially Municipal Ballet School) founded in Venezuela in 1968 by Lidija and Gustavo Franklin, with the aim of bringing classical ballet to all sectors of society, would become the first to offer free education in Caracas. Financial challenges prompted Mara’s grandmother to look into a professional engagement in the dance industry. At the age of sixteen Mara begins her professional career with Keyla Ermecheo’s Ballet Metropolitano de Caracas. Four years later, Mara joins Ballet National of Caracas Teresa Carreno directed by Vicente Nebrada.

After eight years performing with Ballet National of Caracas and whilst touring with the company in US, Mara flees Venezuela hoping to find a sense of safety and forge a future for herself through dance. Due to challenges related to work permit in the US, she travels to Europe where she eventually finds here feet, managing to settle, finding a safer place to call home.

Mara’s performance experience ranges from classical ballet, Tanztheater, physical theatre, and various forms of modern and contemporary dance. She has performed around the world as a member of European, South American and USA based dance companies including; Berlin Ballet Komische Oper, Staatstheater Braunschweig (Germany), Opernhaus Graz (Austria), Ballet Clásico de Madrid, Santamaría Compañía de Danza (Spain), Jose Mateo’s Ballet Theater, Ballet Florida (USA), Ballet Nacional de Caracas Teresa Carreño and Ballet Metropolitano de Caracas (Venezuela). She has danced works by international choreographers such as: Katrin Hall, Cathy Marston, Rami Beer, Didy Veldman, Meryl Tankard, Blanca Li, Marguerite Donlon, Dominique Bagouet, Deborah Colker, Olga Cobos and Peter Mika, Hans Henning Paar, Darrel Toulon, Dominique Dumais, Juan Carlos Santamaria, Dylan Elmore, Joan Cleville and Joanna Young among others.

Her curiosity and fascination with the endless possibilities of body led her to explore choreography alongside her full time employment as a dancer. Mara holds an MA in Choreography and Postgraduate Dance Studies with distinction from The Place - London Contemporary Dance School. She has worked as Practice Based Dissertation Tutor at London Studio Centre. Mara’s choreographic practice revolves around an attentive body, engaged with its surroundings and attuned with itself, she uses somatic principles to devise her work. Her work is meticulously crafted, she strives to create a sensitive and immersive atmosphere to invite the audience in. Mara’s work has been performed in Germany, Portugal, Austria, Venezuela and the United Kingdom.

Alongside her creative practice, she cultivates a therapeutic teaching practice. She is comprehensively qualified in the GYROTONIC® and Pilates movement methods. In her approach to teaching, she blends dance and therapeutic movement principles aiming to facilitate people’s sense of overall well-being and thus encourage their healing process.

As a freelance dance artist, workshop facilitator and teacher, she continues to develop her own choreographic work and teaching skills, collaborating across forms, and performing with and for other artists.