For those in the street, hip hop and urban dance scene in the 808, you'll know who Mara is. I first met her in the 90's (yup I'm dating myself, lol) when I was high school through a good friend of mine who was dancing for her with a crew called "SLAM" who was with Big City Productions at the time. I remember the first time I started taking class with Mara at Big City, I was seriously blown away. Mara has set the foundations for 100's of dancers including Gil Duldulao, Janet Jackson's choreographer. Throughout the years Mara and I have become pretty good friends.
I danced for Mara for quite some time. In my later high school years, I auditioned and got into SLAM. During my summers while I was in college, I continued taking Street from Mara. Around that time, Big City became Dance Central, and during my later college years, I wasn't able to take classes, due to work and the fact that I was living on another island. I returned home for my Masters degree and got started dancing up with Dance Central again. Man, there was a HUGE block of time that I missed out on and choreo had made some significant changes and I had to catch up, lol. All in all it was good to be back.
I'm still hanging in there as one of the geriatric dancers of the group, haha. But anyway a few years ago, Mara got the call from the military and she was deployed to Iraq. While she was away I continued to take Street classes from different choreographers (all former students of Mara), which was good, because I learned different styles of choreo. Mara had been in Iraq for a few years, when she returned back to O'ahu, she got married and stayed on the downlow from the dance scene...until recently.
Last week I got the text from Mara letting me know that she was back into the dance scene, I was trippin. She let me know that she was going to be teaching two classes back at the Y (where our studio is), Beginning Adult Street and Street Jamz. Damn, it's kinda a trip that she's back, not to mention the kick booty cardio she's trademarked for.
But anyway, for you 808 heads lookin' for a good workout, do come by and check Mara out.
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