About


Mara Vivas is an independent dance artist based in the United Kingdom with roots in Latin America. She works in the fields of dance and therapeutic movement. Mara was awarded a distinction on the completion of her MA in Choreography and Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Dance Studies at The Place - London Contemporary Dance School. She has developed work for film, the stage, and site-specific performances. She is interested in collaborating across media to enrich and challenge her practice. Mara creates detailed, intimate performances, bringing a sense of awareness to the whole and the unseen. She devises work that invites reflection and introspection, and builds community.

Her training and performance experience range from classical, neoclassical, and contemporary Ballet to TanztheaterModern Dance, and Postmodern Dance. She has performed around the world as a member of European, South American and US 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 Theatre and Ballet Florida (US), Ballet Nacional de Caracas Teresa Carreño and Ballet Metropolitano de Caracas (Venezuela). She has danced works by international choreographers 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, and Joanna Young, among others.

Mara’s choreographic work has been performed in Europe and South America. She has created work, collaborated with and performed for Young Blood Initiative, Resolution FestivalAlmada Dance FestivalGoLive Dance and Performance FestivalBolivar Hall London, and goldextra, among others. Mara has worked with Bachelor of Arts students at the London Studio Centre as their Practice-Based Dissertation tutor, and has been invited to facilitate dance improvisation classes at Independent DanceThe Evening Space, and The Dance Workshop. She continues to develop her own choreographic work, collaborating with and performing for other artists.

‘I responded quietly but quickly to Mara’s work - its delicacy and level of detail, the depths gradually revealed, and the tight yet also somehow intuitive construction. She probes softly into her themes but with a real determination. Her dances have sensitivity and spine. Like the pop song says, there's 'poetry in motion' in what she does - and emotion, and thought.’

Donald Hutera